Holistic Learning Factories – A Concept to Train Lean Management, Resource Efficiency as Well as Management and Organization Improvement Skills

Abstract Learning factories have been developed to impart substantial knowledge about improvement process concepts and methods to seminar participants within a real-world manufacturing environment. Thus, it is possible to teach the curriculum's contents in a very practice-oriented manner. The advantages of a real-world manufacturing environment can be used for the academic education of university students as well as for the training of industry participants. More and more companies are convinced of this concept, which is why they are implementing learning factories to qualify their specialists from the shop floor to the management level. The principal aim of learning factories is always to convey their complex view of business processes and impart methods, concepts and which provide for the detection of improvement potentials and the implementation of more efficient processes. In their early beginnings, learning factories concentrated mainly on the aspects of lean management and process improvement. Due to the rising significance of resource efficiency, however, this issue has become another main aspect in learning factories. This contribution will incorporate the concept of the learning factory at the Chair of Production Systems (LPS). Learning factories cover three topic areas: lean management, resource efficiency as well as management and organization (company co-determination). In spite of the three very different areas, all of these areas are interlinked within the learning factory by the continuous use of one real product, which is produced during the considered processes. This contribution will show how an integration of different areas in one learning factory is possible and how in this way a learning factory is turning into a holistic concept.