ISEN 645 Sections 600 & 701 Spring 2022 (15-week) 23 June 2023

ISEN 645 Lean Engineering

Syllabus – Spring 2022

Course Title  ISEN 645 Lean Engineering (15w semester)

 ISEN 609 – concurrent is acceptable; a solid course in engineering probability and statistics is
Prerequisites the minimum requirement.
 Credit Hours: 3h [no lab]
 MW 2:40-3:55pm in ZACH 218
 F2F attendance in ZACH 218 is available but not required.
Time/Location  I will record each lectures throughout this semester and simulcast the lectures using zoom for
both F2F and online students.
 These sessions will be lecture-captured using Mediasite and uploaded following the lecture,
usually same day. Lecture notes will be uploaded on the same day that the online lecture is
given.
Required:
 The Lean Toolbox [Bicheno and Holweg] 2016 5 th edition
 Lean Thinking [Womack and Jones] 2003 edition
 Factory Physics for Managers [Pound, Bell, Spearman] 2014
Class Texts & other Suggested:
References  Supply Chain Science [Hopp] 2008
 Learning to See [Rother and Shook] v1.2 1999
 Factory Physics [Hopp and Spearman] 3rd edition 2008
 Lean Engineering [Black and Phillips] 2013
 Lean Manufacturing [Lonnie Wilson] 2nd edition 2015
Software Support  Minitab
 Excel
Tools Leveraging the
 Visio
ISEN Cloud (VM-
 IDEF0 (AI0WIN)
Ware servers)
 IDEF3 (ProSim)
Other materials [will  Course notes available week to week
 Homework assignments will be uploaded weekly; submitted through the assigned ecampus
be made available
dropbox
through our
 Quiz topics will be identified in the lecture notes; weekly quizzes will be conducted weekly and
eCampus website]
handled independently using ecampus; TBD).
 Michael D. Do, Ph.D.
 979-458-2377
Instructor  mddo@tamu.edu
 Office location: ETB 4078
 Office hours: By Appt.
 TBA
TA
 Office hours: TBA
 ISEN 645 Sections 600 & 701 Spring 2022 (15-week) 23 June 2023

 Develop a solid working definition for what constitutes a ‘Lean Production System’ (LPS)
 Demonstrate an understanding of the core principles of Lean Production System design.
 Understand how to represent a Production System (PS) of interest using Systems Engineering
(SE) architectures, lean methods, and tools.
Key objectives
 Understand and identify where the methods, tools, and techniques of PS physics (“Factory
Physics”) are applied to enhance LPS design.
 Understand and demonstrate competence in the use of 6σ methods, tools, and techniques as
applied to the engineering of lean production systems
 Course notes will be uploaded prior to each class
 Reading assignments will be noted on the expanded topical outline in the notes each class
Instruction  Each lecture will consist of several short modules that each contain (i) a brief synopsis of the
principles and practices to be discussed that day, (ii) a class exercise, and (iii) a short discussion
technique
of the solution.
 The lectures will be recorded and uploaded ASAP succeeding the lecture IAW with Mediasite
and/or eSAIL procedures
 The content of this course material must be internalized by you to be of ultimate value in your
own professional career. The approach that I will use to help you internalize the knowledge of
Lean systems is simple: Recitation + Application + Enriched Repetition. I will use the quizzes
as a way to ensure you have initiated this learning process and we will then use lean exercise
and project work to help you fully internalize the concepts of Lean Thinking and Lean
Manufacturing.
 Quizzes [20%] – A quiz will be given weekly; a time window will be identified for initiating the
quiz along with a time available for its completion once initiated.
 Homework [30%] – there will be several small, design, modeling, and analysis exercises
Evaluation assigned throughout the semester. These exercises will be used to drive home key principles
and practices of Lean. Each HW assignment will make clear whether it is individual or team
based. To the extent possible they will coordinated with your project so as to serve as
artifacts in your project design.
 Project Work [50%] - Additionally I will assign a team-based project during the semester that
will pull together concepts from the lean homework but will be focused on an entire
production system design and/or operation.
 Final grades will be assigned as follows:
A: [90,100] B: [80-90) C: [70,80) D: [60,70) F: [0,60)

 I have, and hopefully we share - a zero tolerance policy for cheating – any instance will be
referred immediately to the ISEN Graduate Associate Department Head for review.
 Weekly quizzes will be administered. Many of the quizzes will be conducted using ecampus.
Some quizzes may require zoom monitoring. The TA will manage the conduct for a given quiz
each week. The quiz topic and timing will be announced each week.
 Homework – will be assigned each week and will identify the due date/time to the associated
ecampus dropbox. Instructions will be noted at the start of each assignment. The majority of
Class Policies the lean engineering exercises will necessitate the use of software support tool or tools.
Therefore submission of the assignment will likely be in an electronic format and uploaded
using the assigned “drop box” on our ecampus site unless otherwise directed.
 Late homework policy: late homework can be submitted after the deadline but loses 10% of its
value; no HW will be accepted after the grader uploads the comments and scores without
prior permission due to extenuating circumstances. Your grade and comments regarding the
homework will be made available through ecampus.
 I will provide a rubric for the Homework and the Project Work for you to follow.
 ISEN 645 Sections 600 & 701 Spring 2022 (15-week) 23 June 2023

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ISEN 645 Sections 600 & 701 Spring 2022 (15-week) 23 June 2023

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ISEN 645 Sections 600 & 701 Spring 2022 (15-week) 23 June 2023

Conduct of the class:

 We have a 15w course. There is typically ~2.5h of lecture time each week during a 15w
semester which I break into smaller modules. Quizzes, exercises, activities, and Q&A takes up
the balance of class time. I will lecture each MW 2:40-3:55pm. Office hours are as noted
previously.
 Lecture will be captured and a link made available on our ecampus site following each class.
 Quizzes will be given each week online. They are open book, open notes – but timed. The quiz
will be used to reinforce a concept, principle, or technique that I feel is critical to lean
engineering. I will provide you with the quiz topic the week of the quiz. The quiz will be
handled through ecampus dropboxes, the TA will enforce strict guidelines for the quiz that will
be predicated on the type of quiz being administered.
 Homework will be given weekly; due date and time will be provided in the HW instructions each
week.
 ISEN 645 ecampus “bill of material” summary – each week’s folder will contain:
o Lecture notes
o Lectures from class (as a link to the class lecture)
o Homework assignment
o Extra support material uploaded as necessary (examples, papers, other videos…)
 The team-based project (~3-4 students per team) will be 50% of the semester grade. The
project report will be a structured, written report. In lieu of a live presentation the teams will
submit a 15min video. I will provide you with a detailed rubric for the report and video and I
will discuss the requirements for the project later in the semester.
 We cannot provide feedback to you without getting assignments turned-in in a timely manner. I
realize that you are all busy on other fronts – but please make every attempt to get assignments
in by the due date.

Our target – the lean production system

Since we are dealing with lean “production systems” (PS) we will take a systems engineering approach in
discussing the lean production system and its design. Please keep in mind the ISEN 645 is primarily a
design class – we are focused on the design of lean production systems. Production systems are
complex, integrated collections of people, transformative processes, resources, technology, information,
etc. that have a clear intention, a set of well-defined, “arranged”, transformative processes that
generate a set of clearly defined (customer valued) “products” and/or “services” that constitute the
output of the production system. The production system itself could be a hospital, a manufacturing
operation, a grocery store, a university, a sports franchise, an athletic event, a restaurant. Production
systems generate various byproducts that are not valued by the customer – these are considered waste.
Hence, a Lean PS is a PS without waste. It is essential that we understand how to design and represent
the LPS – we need a characterization of what our goal is. Lean engineering activities must be directed
towards the realization of this LPS. Broadly, lean is systematic removal of waste from the production
system, while 6σ is concerned with the systematic elimination of variability from the production system.
ISEN 645 is concerned with both.
ISEN 645 Sections 600 & 701 Spring 2022 (15-week) 23 June 2023

Design – the thing; the activity

Design is ubiquitous to engineering. Design is an activity and that activity is largely characterized using
the engineering design process. Design is also a “thing” – a set of architectures that characterize and
communicate the “thing” being designed. Design – the activity, the time phased set of activities that
result in the set of technical architectures, must be managed. Thus, there is both an administrative view
(management) of the design process and a technical view (development). The successful LPS engineer
should be cognizant of and competent in both. As designers we will leverage the engineering design
process (EDP) which is infused with various design artifacts. These design artifacts are developed using
engineering modeling and modeling tools. As you know some tools are almost instantaneously applied
and some can take years to master. Since production systems are arranged sets of transformative
processes subject to uncertainties – they are by nature stochastic systems, thus they are best studied
using factory physics principles and practices. A background in factory physics will be helpful to you,
thus at least a third of the course is focused on the P&P of production (aka factory) physics. Further, this
class will introduce some tools that have proven valuable in lean design. Many of you have a
background that may allow you to wield more advanced tools such as Arena, Simio, Witness, etc. –
knowledge and skill in the application of these types of tools is not critical for this class but it is very
helpful to have studied the principles, methods, techniques, and tools related to the analysis and design
of stochastic systems.

As noted, a core objective in this class is the design of lean production systems. Design is normally a
team activity. I intend to have the DL students participate in the project work as team members. I will
discuss our process for this at a later date. But this highlights the importance of the “administrative
view” of the LPS design process and its subsequent implementation. Thus we will focus on the technical
LPS design process and associated artifacts (75%), but we will also consider the administrative view as
well (25%).

Resources
I will use many resources during the semester. If you are serious about lean, and more generally about
production systems, then acquisition of these resources is encouraged. Used copies are available. I
wish there was a solitary, cohesive source that brought together the essence of what one needs to know
to perform lean production system design – it is simply not the case (this phenomenon is likely more due
to the nature of design than it is to lean in particular). My assignments to you will be more often
defined by me, however I may leverage exercises from the Factory Physics text when and where
appropriate. The following is a list of primary resources that I leverage in the development of the
lectures and assignments. In part, my job is to help you progress from being a novice to a capable lean
design engineer. If the question is “what’s critical” in the list below – my answer is all of them; however
I have marked a few (*) that I have found to be both readable and directly applicable in lean design
efforts.

• www.lean.org*
• Factory Physics* [Hopp and Spearman] 3rd edition 2008
• Factory Physics for Managers [Pound, Bell, Spearman] 2014
• Lean Engineering* [Black and Phillips] 2013
• Lean Manufacturing* [Lonnie Wilson] 2nd edition 2015
• Lean Thinking* [Womack and Jones] 2003 edition
ISEN 645 Sections 600 & 701 Spring 2022 (15-week) 23 June 2023

• Learning to See* [Rother and Shook] v1.2 1999

• The Lean Toolbox*
• Improving Production with Lean Thinking
• Methods, Standards, and Work Design
• Applied Probability and Stochastic Processes
• Operations Research Models and Methods
• Principles of Operations Management
• Gemba Kaizen
• Planning Manufacturing Cells
• IDEF0 Method Report
[Bicheno and Holweg] 5th edition 2016
[Santos/Wysk/Torres] 2006
[Niebel] 12th edition 2007
[Feldman and Valdez-Flores] 2nd edition 2010
[Paul A. Jensen, Jonathan F. Bard] 2002 edition
[Heizer/Render] 7th edition
[Imai] 2nd Edition 2012
[Hales and Andersen] 2002 SME
[Mayer et al] www.idef.com

The only sources listed above that you will have directed reading assignments from is Lean Thinking
(Womack and Jones), The Lean Toolbox (Bicheno and Holweg), and Factory Physics for Managers
(Pound, Bell, and Spearman). I will endeavor to cover the remaining material in the lecture notes.
Value Stream Mapping is essential to lean design and the Learning to See monograph by Rother and
Shook is essential to that task. Value stream mapping is the most iconic indicator that a lean design is
being performed somewhere in the organization; but VSMs as the sole artifact constituting a lean PS
design leave us well short of what we need to perform rigorous design. Lean Engineering (Black and
Phillips) is the text that we use during a normal semester and it has an excellent treatment of lean cell
design as well as lean 6σ. Though not a text in the classical sense, Lean Manufacturing by Wilson – is
very well written and structured as an introduction to lean – it contains several cases studies that
characterize lean design very effectively. Lonnie Wilson is a lean practitioner with many decades of
experience – his book is very useful to have in your library.

Lean design, at its core is a design for a production system. Factory physics is the body of knowledge
studied and internalized by industrial and systems engineers for detailed production system (analysis
and) design. Mark Spearman et al characterize the nature of production system “physics” – that is the
nature of variability, its corrupting influence, and what we (as lean designers and engineers) do to
remediate its impact. Factory Physics (Hopp and Spearman) is a classic text in this area. Factory Physics
for Managers is a very useful introduction. I will leverage both during this course. IDEF0, as a systems
engineering method, is essential in characterizing the context and content of the production system that
is the focus of our lean design. As a practicing ISEN I use IDEF0 for both “current” state and “future”
state definition. I will introduce this method early in the course – the method itself is in the public
domain and is described in a method report at the www.idef.com website. I will provide you with
enough of an introduction into the IDEF0 method for our needs in the class. It is likely that we will also
touch on IDEF3 – a method for process description capture. IDEF3 will allow us to capture important
details and facets of the value stream (core transformative processes) which are left (purposely) out of
the VSM. If we intend on accounting for, eliminating the various sources of waste in the value stream,
or instrumenting the LPS design for viability – we are going to need a mechanism for rigorously and
precisely characterizing the nature of that VS in enough detail for analysis and design.

The Lean Toolbox (5th edition 2016 by Bicheno and Holweg) is subtitled as “a handbook for lean
transformation”. This is an excellent and very inexpensive description of lean, the core techniques, and
system level insights that the practitioner must be aware of during implementation. The book is well
sourced and provides the best fusion of both technical and cultural topics that I am familiar with. The
 ISEN 645 Sections 600 & 701 Spring 2022 (15-week) 23 June 2023

clarity of writing and discussion is on a par with Factory Physics. The 5th edition weaves in phenomena
from industrial psychology. It is clear that the authors are lean practitioners, educators, and
researchers.

ISEN 645 Weekly Topical Outline

I will provide a more detailed description of the material for each week/class in the lecture notes.

The core principles of lean production systems are summarized as value, value stream, flow, control,
and perfection. The lectures and class discussions have been organized around these 5-core principles.
Like most systems, the LPS requires maintenance or it decays. The principle of perfection alludes to the
never ending drive towards the “lean production system upon a hill” – that is, true single-piece flow and
quantity control enabled through quality control. But it is during LPS design that we must instrument for
waste accounting and PS “health” monitoring. 6σ (variability reduction) is intrinsic to LPS design.

Week Core Topic / Theme Technical focus

1: 19JAN Introduction to Lean Core principles and definitions
Value – VOC visually aligned in the PS; Characterizing Value in the PS using IDEF0;
2: 24/26JAN
instrumenting the PS for 6σ (DFSS) Lean PS design principles
Value Stream Mapping; 8-Step design
3: 31JAN/2FEB Characterizing the Value Stream process; IDEF3 – production process
engineering P&P
Line balancing; Task engineering thru
4: 7/9FEB Engineering the Value Stream for flow
WM&M; “SMED”
Cell design; resource requirements
5: 14/16FEB Engineering the Value Stream for control
estimation
6: 21/23FEB Controlling the Flow Level loading; MM sequencing; EPE
7: 28FEB/2MAR Controlling the Flow Kanban; CONWIP; integrated IC & PC
PS engineering for variability in the PS flow; Factory Physics Principles; the equation of
8: 7/9MAR instrumenting for flow imbalances; lean; 3EQN/4GRAPHS; Buffer engineering
management (time, capacity, inventory)
9: 14/16 MAR Spring Break – No Classes
10: 21/23 MAR Lean supply chain P&P Principles; SC definition and design
11: 28/30 MAR Lean SC P&P Integration with the PS; Beer game
12: 4/6 APR Perfection: Lean 6σ DMAIC VOC; SIPOC; C/E chaining
13:11/13 APR Perfection: Lean 6σ DMAIC Gauge R&R; SPC
14: 18/20 APR Perfection: Gemba Kaizen and Kata Implementation / Action planning
15: 25/27 APR Kata and Culture Leadership, Culture
16: 2MAY Epilogue Schedule and timing TBD
Projects due NLT 2MAY (2400h)

* It is critical to have reports submitted on time. Grades for graduating students are due by noon .

The semester project will be assigned at the start of week5.