The Airplane Game: Lean Accounting Takes Flight

Many companies have implemented lean accounting, which tracks costs more directly to value streams based on the flow of production rather than on the allocation of shared resource costs. The resources tend to be dedicated and easier to trace to the value streams. In addition, many nonfinancial measurements are used in place of the traditional financial measurements that tend to be late and difficult for nonaccountants to interpret. Because of lean's benefits, additional companies are considering such a change. (1) In interviews with lean advocates, a common theme emerges: Communication and training are the essential elements for a successful implementation of lean processes and procedures. (2) What we present here is a simple method for explaining lean processes and for testing metrics in a nonthreatening way prior to full implementation. TEACHING LEAN Three MBA students at Western Washington University accepted a challenge of teaching their classmates the lean accounting principles in The Lean Business Management System; Lean Accounting Principles & Practices Toolkit (3) Instead of lecturing about the book, the three decided to create a lean accounting game that involves basic paper airplanes. Their inspiration came from the Beer Distribution Game, which they had played in their operations class taught by Dr. Peter Haug, who had communicated vast quantities of information through the down-to-earth simulation. (4) Simple yet elegant, the Airplane Game can be introduced easily and inexpensively in the classroom and in organizations. In addition to explaining the lean con cepts to personnel, it can also test proposed lean metrics to see their efficacy. For the classroom, the game focused on the impact of the accounting metrics on the behaviors of the class participants. It proved to be a powerful method of both testing and explaining potential lean metrics and processes. Unlike other lean simulations, this one concentrated on the impact of metrics on lean processes and factors in critical elements of a successful lean implementation usually underplayed in other simulations: 1. Team communication, 2. The impact of physical structure on lean implementation, 3. Quality, 4. Metrics, and 5. Training in lean. The products were paper airplanes, so the raw materials were recycled paper. Any professor could easily incorporate this experiment into his or her class and dramatically increase the power of the lean lesson. This experiment also can be used to research the impact of corporate structure and metrics on lean success. Implementers can use the game to determine how to reinforce lean behavior through metric choice and training. INITIAL EXPERIMENTS THE DESIGN Essentially, each team represented the manufacturing cycle of a product--a paper airplane--thus establishing a common visual for all the participants. Each group obtained raw materials, converted raw materials into a product, tested the product for quality, and then sold the product. The material needed for this experiment was plain paper. Participants were divided into teams of five to six members and were given specific assignments on each team: 1. Purchasing Agent, 2. Production, 3. Quality Control (QC), or 4. Sales Agent. Each assignment had one person, except for Production, which had two or three people. These tasks also were handed out with the assignments: Purchasing 1. Walk up to raw materials supplier to get four pieces of paper per trip. 2. Return any damaged paper to the supplier for an exchange. 3. Account for quantity of inventory (unused paper) at the end of each period. Production 1. Obtain paper from purchasing. 2. Make paper airplanes. (We did not provide a predetermined design.) 3. Write your group number on the tail of each airplane. …