College of Business Quarterly Newsletter
                                                                                                                          July 2007- Volume 11.1

College of Business Homepage :: The Executive :: USF Will Teach Area Executives How to Improve
                                                                          Efficiency and “Go Lean” in September
 

Lean management programs maximize value and minimize waste by focusing on consumer demand, fixing problems at
the source, and maximizing the use
of scarce resources, among other things.











 

USF Will Teach Area Executives How to Improve Efficiency and “Go Lean” in September
Managers eager to improve efficiency and eliminate waste from business systems can learn the benefits of “Lean” management thanks to a new partnership between the University of South Florida and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology through a special course open to the public in September.  Targeted at mid-level supervisors and managers focused on quality and systems, the week-long course will be held at the College of Business in Tampa, September 24 – 28.

Internationally recognized, Lean’s origins are in aerospace but Lean is now applied across manufacturing and service industries, cutting waste, improving productivity, and boosting the competitive edge for companies employing Lean principles. Financial operations, health care, and other service industries have been quick to pick up on the advantages of Lean.

Participants will learn how the best local and national companies employ Lean thinking at this hands-on interactive course taught by a team of top university faculty.  The curriculum includes hands-on exercises examining Lean’s five fundamental principles – value, value stream, flow, pull, and perfection. 

“The course was great,” said MBA student Robert Kindya, who enrolled in the inaugural Lean course held in March.   “The learning format was dynamic, varied and fast-paced. We would learn about a Lean concept through an expert’s lecture, practice it in a simulation or game format, and then see its value first-hand through plant tours and off-site sessions.”   

Dean Robert Forsythe forged a partnership between USF’s College of Business, the Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lean Aerospace Initiative to bring the course to Tampa.  USF is the first university in Florida and only the fifth in the nation to offer the course outside of MIT.


USF is the first university
in Florida and only the fifth
in the nation to offer the
course outside of MIT.

Involvement is one of the keys to the course and many of the lessons will be taught through hands-on group exercises.  Robert Trigaux, St. Petersburg Times’ business editor, sat in on one such exercise during the March course offered for MBA students.  To learn about supply chains and demonstrate common mistakes that lead to inefficiency, students participated in what MIT has dubbed “The Beer Game.”  They were divided into four rows, each row representing a brewery, wholesaler, distributor and retailer.  Only the retailer knew the amount of beer being purchased by customers; the rest could only respond to the vacillating demand for orders.  The challenge for students was to meet demand without an excess or shortage of "beer," represented by poker chips.
 
Even though the demand was the same for each row, the outcomes for each ranged from excessively high amounts of beer to severely low. The Beer Game quickly showed students that speculated forecasts and misinformation can result in inefficient supply chains and higher costs. 
 

“That’s where Lean comes in,” said Jerry Koehler, one of the instructors for the course.  “Students are able to see how waste impacts systems, and we are able to teach them ways to study the system and eliminate the waste.”  Lean management programs maximize value and minimize waste by focusing on consumer demand, fixing problems at the source, and maximizing the use of scarce resources, among other things.  Companies who implement Lean include Boeing and Toyota.  The famous Toyota Production System is highly regarded for its extremely high productivity.
 
Trigaux was quickly able to zero in on the importance of such a course and its relevance to today’s business leaders, pointing out that since U.S. businesses compete globally, they increasingly compete against leaner operations from other nations.  He wrote, “teaching the next generation of managers how to run leaner just might become The USF Way.”
 
Cost for the special executive education course is $1,795 per person.  Online registration will open in August at http://coba.usf.edu/lean.html