The role of lean training in lean implementation

[Excerpt] Lean thinking was proposed by Womack & Jones (1996) as an interpretation of the way Toyota was successfully approaching its production system. The body of knowledge around the lean philosophy has been built over the years by practitioners and scholars from around the world and an interesting example of a conceptual model of lean tools and principles was proposed by Hodge et al (2011). The implementation of lean principles, concepts and tools is quite popular in many types of organization around the world but not always with success (Negrão, et al, 2017). Lean training is referred to frequently in the literature as playing an important role in the success of lean implementation and in continuous improvement programmes. Shrimali & Soni (2017) reported that one of the limitations observed for successful implementations of lean in SMEs was the poor training. Another study (Netland, 2016) shows that after management commitment and involvement comes training, and education as the most commonly reported critical success factor in the improvement programme literature. Similar results were also reported by Yamchello et al (2014). Lean in education and training can be divided into two distinctive areas of knowledge and work. One area can be called Lean Teaching and the other area can be called Teaching Lean. The Teaching Lean area can be described as the way students and professionals can be effectively trained on Lean principles, concepts and tools so they can apply Lean in real contexts such as factories and other organizations. This area is quite a large subject with fast growing interest in recent years. The other area, Lean Teaching, can be described as how lean principles and concepts can be effectively applied in learning/training activities. There is a very interesting book on the subject published by Emiliani (2015) but this subject remains little explored by academic authors with very few articles published. Another closely-related area sometimes with confusing interpretation as Lean Teaching is the use of lean in schools and universities. In these cases the use of Lean is mainly applied in offices and other service areas that exist in academic organizations. [...]This work was supported by Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia [UIDB/00319/2020]

Contribuição para a valorização de produtos lácteos dos Açores : qualificação e caracterização da manteiga açoriana

Dissertação de Mestrado em Tecnologia e Segurança AlimentarO desenvolvimento da Região Autónoma dos Açores (RAA) assenta, sobretudo, na melhoria da qualidade da sua produção, em especial na área da agro-pecuária. Neste contexto, importa implementar a diversificação e a modernização do tecido empresarial dos Açores, através da realização de estudos que visem uma melhoria da qualidade e diversificação de produtos e, particularmente, que confiram à indústria de lacticínios uma maior capacidade de inserção nos mercados nacionais e internacionais. Estes estudos deverão contribuir para a valorização da produção leiteira dos Açores e para a identificação de novos produtos lácteos de valor acrescentado, através, designadamente, da quantificação de diversos componentes funcionais existentes que os tornem únicos e com características distintas. Este trabalho surge da necessidade de compilar dados e concluir sobre as características físico-químicas, microbiológicas e organoléticas que permitam determinar a reputação da manteiga dos Açores e valorizar este produto lácteo característico da Região, que poderá ser muito importante para a economia dos Açores. Construir um caderno de especificações para a manteiga dos Açores é o primeiro passo a dar no sentido de criar para este produto uma indicação geográfica protegida (IGP).ABSTRACT: The development of the Azores Region (RAA) will be achieved mainly by improving the quality of local products, particularly in the area of "agro-livestock". In this context, it’s important to diversify and modernize Azorean industry structures, by conducting studies aimed at improving the quality and diversification of products and, particularly, studies that provide the dairy industry with a greater ability to enter new domestic and international markets. These studies will contribute to the enhancement of the quality of milk production at the Azores and to identify new value-added dairy products, in particular through the quantification of various existing functional components that make them distinct and unique. This work arises from the need to compile data and information on the physical, chemical, microbiological and organoleptic characteristics of Azorean butter, to establish its international reputation and enhance the dairy products of the region, which could be very important for the economy of the archipelago. Build a specification book for Azores butter is the first step towards creating this product a protected indication of origin (IGP)

Assessment of rock mass parameters based on the monitoring data from the Koralm Investigation Tunnels

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Civil (Especialização em Geotecnia). Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

Threats and opportunities for workplace ergonomics in lean environments

Lean Management Systems (LMS) have become very popular among the manufacturing industry, services and large commercial areas. A LMS must develop and consider a set of work energizers to bring compatibility with workplace ergonomics, namely at a muscular, cognitive, and emotional demands level. The goal of this study is the identification of the most relevant impacts of a LMS adoption from the ergonomic point of view and cited in the literature and the synthesis of some possible drawbacks in workplace ergonomics due to a flawed application of the LMS. A final discussion about the most important, positive and negative, impacts are present at the end of the paper

Lean production promotes thinkers, not "androids"

This paper presents the role of the Lean Production paradigm as promoter of the workers’ human potential. In the literature it is possible to find out many authors who have a negative opinion about Lean Production and consider this organizational model as an extension of Taylorist/Fordist model where the worker is seen as a gear in the “big machine”. Based on literature review and on the Toyota Production System (TPS) principles and history (later coined as “Lean Production”), and by comparing this with other systems, it will be attested that Lean Production is a work organizational model where the worker assumes a position of thinker, continuously looking for improvement. These workers-thinkers are the base for the Learning Organization

Enterprise architecture as enabler of organizational agility : a municipality case study

Organizational agility is one of the top management concerns as organizations face today increasingly changing environments. Among enterprise architecture (EA) benefits, organizational agility has been claimed as one of them, perceived as a direct or indirect benefit, for example, through business-IT alignment, another top management concern. However, even with reasonable explanations in the EA literature, there is still a lack of empirical evidence to support such claim. Our research looks for that evidence seeking to understand how the development and use of EA may contribute for organizational agility. Having one of the biggest municipalities in the country as the research setting, using a mix-methods approach, a case study was carried out to identify EA artefacts, understand EA at use and examine agility in a specific change situation. In this case, enterprise architecture was not just used but was developed and improved during the change situation to enable organizational agility.PEst-OE/EEI/UI0319/201

Continuous Improvement

The principles and concepts originated mainly in Toyota in the 1950s and now presented in models such as Lean Thinking, Shingo Model, and The Toyota Way itself are powerful ideas to bring success to organizations, but the path is not easy. In theory, there are two main features to reach effective and sustainable success, the right vision (True North) and continuous improvement toward that vision. Those two main features are as easy to understand as they are difficult to accomplish. Even when senior leaders have full understanding and belief, the effective implementation on a daily basis is an enormous challenge. This chapter will show how organizations can implement sustainable and stable continuous improvement systems. It will describe the principles that must be followed, the necessary requirements that must be fulfilled, the way the organizations must be structured in teams, the necessary routines, and all the practical steps necessary to reach that sustainable and stable continuous improvement system

On the Use of 1-bit DACs in Massive MIMO Systems

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems are being proposed for next generation broadband wireless systems. However, as the complexity of implementation grows with the number of antenna elements, their feasibility is a challenging task. Consider very low complexity, 1-bit digital-to-analogue converters (DACs) for the downlink of massive MIMO systems. The impact of the resultant severe non-linear distortion effects is analysed when a low-complexity maximum ratio transmission technique is employed for user separation. The non-linear distortion levels decrease with the number of transmit antennas allowing good performance, even with 1-bit DACs are shown

Homeostasis of the T cell memory compartment

Tese de doutoramento em Biologia (Biologia Celular), apresentada à Universidade de Lisboa através da Faculdade de Ciências, 2008In spite of daily T cell production in the thymus associated with intensive proliferation and differentiation of specific T cells upon each antigenic stimulation, peripheral T cells numbers are kept constant. This equilibrium is called homeostasis and subjacent to this process is the concept of competition for limiting resources. Each newly produced T cell has to compete with other new and/or resident peripheral T cell to survive. The periphery comprises two main compartments, the naive and activated/memory T cell pools, for each CD8+ and CD4+ subsets. These compartments are thought to have independent homeostatic regulation, although they share some common resources. The purpose of this thesis is to study the homeostasis of T cells, with a particular interest for the memory subsets, either at steady state or after disruption of this equilibrium upon infection. In the first part of the work, we showed that T cells belonging to different peripheral compartments could compete with each other for p-MHC (peptide-MHC complexes), even if they present a distinct T cell receptor. Moreover, we observed that recognition of p-MHC overlaps not only between different T cell populations but also between T cells ongoing different homeostatic mechanisms such as survival, LDP or accumulation after thymic emigration. In the second part of the study, we show again a modulation of T cell repertoire due to the displacement of memory T cells by BM-derived T cells presenting degenerate TCR. Besides this steady state attrition termed natural attrition , we proposed to study the fate of memory T cells upon Salmonella thymimurium infection. Preliminary data showed that both non-specific CD4+ and CD8+ memory T cells were depleted upon this infection and that type I IFN were not directly implicated in this death. More work remains to be performed to precisely define the targets and mechanism of this attrition.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, (FCT), (bolsa de referência SFRH/BD/16762/2004

Management of interdisciplinary project approaches in Engineering Education: a case study

This paper describes project management processes of coordination teams, in the implementation of interdisciplinary project approaches in Engineering Education. These interdisciplinary projects are based on the Project-Led Education (PLE) concept and are being implemented since 2004/2005 in the Industrial Management and Engineering (IME) master degree course (1st and 2nd cycle of Engineering Education) at University of Minho. Usually, these approaches involve a coordination team of 10 to 15 members with different roles: teachers, tutors and education researchers. This team is responsible for preparing the project for the semester and forming the students’ teams. The coordination of these two types of teams is centred on a project manager that is responsible for, and supports, all the work developed during the semester, e.g., prepare the initial presentation of the project to the students, prepare the web site that supports the work, establish the communication between students and the rest of the team, prepare the students’ guide, and so on. Managing these projects is an intense task that demands a lot of time and different competencies. In this work it is presented a project management framework based on project management knowledge areas, to aid coordination teams to achieve better results