Lean Lego Simulation

Another institution of higher learning has a great simulation to demonstrate Lean principles. The University of St. Andrews in Scotland has come up with this Lean game which uses three types of common Lego blocks to make six different objects for the customer. The customer gets to pick from a catalogue of these products, which are built at two stations. The best part of the game is that you get to make Lego animals! Most simulations use cars or other mechanical devices, but I love the fact that the choices include a duck robot.

Look at that cute horse! A great game with a touch of humour. Because the processes are not linked, it does lack a little of the bottleneck / theory of constraints aspect of Lean, but their are plenty of opportunities to improve the process. In fact, I expect that the team would be able to come up with two linked subassembly stations as a kaizen, instead of two stand alone stations. 

The .pdf for the game includes instructions for all the stations. It is ready to go. All you need is the Lego blocks or equivalent. 

Here is an example of the instructions for one of the build stations:

The cumbersome order forms are another place to focus some improvement activities, but they also serve to track the time from order to receive, as the customer has to keep track of this info on the sheet.

Unfortunately, the links to this game are broken, so they've been removed.