
Lean Management and Industry 4.0
Advancing digitalization and Industry 4.0 offer manufacturing companies the opportunity to reduce complexity and produce a more diverse product portfolio with greater flexibility while maintaining consistent costs. Lean management continues to serve as the foundation for the optimal design of the production system. On the one hand, digitalization makes new methods for production optimization available; on the other hand, proven methods can be applied more quickly, more easily, or with less prior knowledge. During the workshop, participants work on a real-world production system for manufacturing electric motors and independently improve production step by step. In doing so, they experience the transformation from largely analog shop-floor manufacturing to flexible flow production supported by digital tools, with batch size one. On the path to flow production, participants analyze the entire system, optimize the process sequence, synchronize production, and adjust the layout. In addition to production processes, logistics processes—from order picking to feeding the line—are also adapted. To ensure high delivery reliability even with fluctuating and short-notice customer demand, various methods of production control are covered. In addition to Lean tools, workshop participants have access to numerous digital tools for direct use at production stations and for analyzing production
Methods taught
Value stream analysis and value stream design
Digital Shopfloor Management
One-Piece-Flow
Levelling
Kanban, ConWip, order release
Kitting, Milkrun, Just-intime, Just-in-sequence
MES
Augmented Go&See