Lean Manufacturing Improvement Project

Engineering Context

Lockwood Aerospace Manufacturing meets quality requirements but uses more time and motion than necessary. Your team will complete a Lean observation, collect baseline data, and implement a software improvement supported by evidence.

What You Will Practice

• Recognize common forms of manufacturing waste
• Create current-state and future-state process maps
• Measure cycle time and value-added time
• Implement and verify an improvement

What You Need

• VEX CTE Workcell
• Current production program
• Stopwatch
• Process-map template or paper
• Spreadsheet
• Engineering notebook

Instructions

1. Observe five cycles without changing the program.
2. List examples of motion, waiting, transportation, defects, and over-processing.
3. Create a current-state process map with times for each step.
4. Mark which steps directly add value for the customer.
5. Select one software change that removes or reduces waste.
6. Predict the expected time savings.
7. Implement the change and run ten verification cycles.
8. Create a future-state map and calculate percent improvement.
9. Prepare a two-minute improvement presentation.

Engineering Requirements

• Identify at least four examples of waste
• Implement at least one software improvement
• Improve average cycle time by at least 15%
• Maintain product quality and safety

Constraints & Safety

• Do not remove required inspection or safety actions
• Change one major variable at a time
• Use measured data rather than opinion
• No hardware purchases

What You Submit

• Waste observation sheet
• Current/future process maps
• Updated code
• Before/after data and graph
• Improvement presentation
• Reflection

Reflection Questions

1. Which step added the least customer value?
2. Did removing a wait create a new risk?
3. How did the future-state map change?
4. What improvement would require hardware?