Montaj hattı dengeleme konusunda yalın kavramları kullanan bir eğitsel oyunun tasarımı ve değerlendirmesi

The activities that aim to increase the productivity of assembly lines are among the very important activities in factories and they are considered as the origin of Industrial Engineering. Lean Thinking, coming from Toyota Production System was born with studies increasing productivity of assembly lines. Assembly line balancing activities are called as Yamazumi activities in Lean Thinking. These are not only important for increasing productivity but also critical for creating a sustainable culture for productive companies. This study develops an educational game on assembly line design using lean concepts. The game uses the experiential learning technique, which is an effective tool that make the participants learn the assembly line design by experiencing working on an assembly line in an entertaining atmosphere. The game aims to show the participants that using lean techniques improves the line efficiency. LEGO® parts are used as educational material to simulate the assembly process of a selected product. This educational game has three phases: in Phase 1, the participants assemble the entire product individually to get used to doing assembly operations; in Phase 2, working as a team, they design an assembly line with workstations that ideally have equal workload, while in Phase 3, they are introduced to lean concepts and then they are allowed to redesign the line. Using the assembly lines designed in phases 2 and 3 a number of products are assembled, and key performance indicators are compared to see the lean effect on line efficiency. This game has been played by several teams from different manufacturing sectors. A statistical analysis of the results shows that the performance of the simulated assembly lines has improved after applying the lean techniques.