The evening/professional students played a game this week called the Paper Airplane Game. Students formed teams of 5 or 6 and each team was tasked with developing and implementing a paper airplane manufacturing process. The cameras focused mostly on one team, the YELLOW airplane team. We also gave each YELLOW team member a microphone so that you could listen in on their discussions during and between rounds. Watch the video, listen to the team interaction and look at the following results data:
|
Round (YELLOW Team)
|
1 (5 minutes)
|
2 (5 minutes)
|
3 (5 minutes)
|
|
Units built
|
24
|
35
|
45
|
|
Units successfully flown into box
|
10
|
18
|
18
|
|
Percent
|
42%
|
51%
|
40%
|
Starting with a new Word doc, please answer the questions below regarding this team's Kaizen paper airplane manufacturing improvement process. Do not answer your questions in this document.
§ Q1: What did you notice went well and what "wastes" were created during this process in rounds 1 and 2?
§ Q2: Did the team appear to address the wastes that you identified during round 3?
§ Q3: In what ways did the team engage or not engage in Kaizen as the game progressed?
§ Q4: If we continued, what would your suggestions be for new process improvements for the team?
Kaizen and YOU
§ Consider the Kaizen improvement process and the concepts of Lean. Identify one problem in your workplace (or in your life if you are not employed). Apply the concepts of lean and examine how you might be able to use the Kaizen process improvement approach to improve this process.