EuroLEAN+ European Lean Enterprise Alliance Network

Output 4:Feasibility Study for Joint Master ProgramSummary Report

Date: 31-10-2018

Project ID: 2015-1-NO01-KA203-013288

-Co-funded by the

Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union

O4: FEASIBIL ITY STUDY FOR JOINT MASTER PROGRAM

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The partners in the EuroLEAN+ project started with the ambition to develop an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree (EMJMD) offered by the academic partners. To be able to translate this ambition into more concrete actions, a feasibility study was performed in Work Package 4 of the EuroLEAN+ project, which is reported in this document. More specifically, it provides an overview of European master study programs that are related to operations management, customised lean, and related topics. The specifics of the search are described in section 1. Next, section 2 identifies the gaps in the existing master programs within operations management and manufacturing excellence. The outline for a new master program that fills these gaps and an actual updated master programme at one of the EuroLEAN+ partners are presented in section 3. In the concluding section 4, a motivation is given why the EuroLEAN+ partners decided not to apply for an EMJMD in the end, but for a Knowledge Alliance (KA) instead.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..................................................................................................................................... 1

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................ 3

SEARCH AND SELECTION OF MASTER PROGRAMS............................................................................................ 5

FLOWCHART ........................................................................................................................................................... 5 SELECTION .............................................................................................................................................................. 5

GAP WITHIN RELEVANT MASTER PROGRAMS .................................................................................................. 9

OVERVIEW ............................................................................................................................................................. 9 IDENTIFYING GAPS ................................................................................................................................................. 10

TOWARDS A LEAN ENGINEERING MASTER PROGRAM ................................................................................... 11

WAY FORWARD ............................................................................................................................................. 13

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................................... 14

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INTRODUCTION

The objective of EuroLEAN+ was to create, unify, capture, reuse and disseminate the knowledge on Customized Lean. This was done through supporting the development of higher education knowledge in Customized Lean in EU countries. This is in line with Education and Training 2020 strategy (ET2020) to create jobs, economic growth and prosperity.

The members of the EuroLEAN+ consortium aimed at fulfilling this objective by enhancing the priority sector of quality and relevance of higher education in Customised Lean. This quality enhancement was facilitated by:

• International cooperation between higher education institutions, research centres and industrial committee through mobility.

• Using best practice examples of innovative and creative solutions from practice to support theory, knowledge transfer and building knowledge community.

• Involving students in industry through industry projects. • Contemplating remodelling of curricula through development of joint ventures between

student, staff and industrial workforce.

The vision behind remodelling curricula was to establish a contemporary teaching program in Customized Lean that could be successively integrated across European Higher Education (HE). EuroLEAN+ had the ambition of developing an Erasmus+ joint master program (JMP) with the current partners within 5 years after the EuroLEAN+ project.

To gain further insight into this possibility, a feasibility study for such a master’s programme was one of the intellectual outputs that EuroLEAN+ aimed to deliver. This feasibility study evaluated whether offering this JMP is worthwhile, and if so, whether universities from other parts of the world (such as USA) may also eventually be included.

The planned activities within the feasibility study were:

1. Mapping and evaluating other similar programs

2. Mapping and evaluating existing curricula and feasibility in higher education institutes

3. Perform a needs analysis using the evaluation of the results from the other outputs of this project

4. Draft a proposal for the JMP

However, the results of feasibility study for this program revealed the need for a different course of action than drafting a proposal for the JMP. The results provide the motivation for why the EuroLEAN+ partners decided not to apply for an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in the end, but for a Knowledge Alliance (KA) instead.

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SEARCH AND SELECTION OF MASTER PROGRAMS

Following is an explanation of how the search of master programs in Europe was conducted, and how the selection of the most relevant master programs for the project was further refined. This overview was based on the programs that are listed on www.masterportal.com. The flowchart illustrating the different steps of the search is shown in Figure 1.

FLOWCHART

The search for master programs was performed in three turns, each with a specific search word, namely “Operations management”, “Manufacturing management” and “Production management”. The search results were then limited to European master programs in Engineering and Technology, in the following subdisciplines: “General engineering & technology”, “Mechanical engineering” and “Industrial & systems engineering”. The search identified 162 individual master programs in Europe.

SELECTION

In the second phase, the program contents were evaluated. First, the master programs with only a few relevant courses were rejected (e.g., an electromechanical engineering program with only a quality management course), reducing the number of approved master programs to 72, as shown in Figure 1. Next, the master programs were eliminated in which less than 50 percent of the courses and modules are related to operations management. The number of approved master programs was then 41. In the third and final round, the master programs were evaluated based on how general and wide the courses were. Many master programs focused on general management, like project, people and business management, instead of focusing on operations, manufacturing and supply chain management. In the end, ten relevant master programs remained after the final rejection round. These are listed in Table 1.

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FIGURE 1: FLOWCHART OF THE SEARCH OF EUROPEAN MASTER PROGRAMS.

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TABLE 1: 10 MOST RELEVANT MASTER STUDY PROGRAMS.

Nr. Master program University Country Link 1 Industrial Engineering

and Management Aalto University Finland http://studyguides.aalto.fi/sci/2015-

iem/majors/operations-and-service-management.html

2 Engineering Management

Brunel University London

United Kingdom

http://www.brunel.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/engineering-management-msc

3 Production Engineering

Chalmers University of Technology

Sweden http://www.chalmers.se/en/education/programmes/masters-info/Pages/Production-Engineering.aspx#second-page

4 Advanced Manufacturing Engineering and Management

Loughborough University

United Kingdom

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/programmes/departments/mechanical-manufacturing/advanced-manuf-eng-mgt/

5 Engineering - Operations Management

University of Southern Denmark

Denmark http://www.sdu.dk/en/uddannelse/kandidat/operationsmanagement/uddannelsens_opbygning

6 Engineering Management

University of Greenwich

United Kingdom

http://www2.gre.ac.uk/study/courses/pg/enggen/engman

7 Manufacturing Systems Engineering (MSE)

WMG University of Warwick

United Kingdom

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/wmg/education/wmgmasters/courses/manufacturing_systems_engineering/

8 Production and Operations Management (POM)

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Germany https://hector.idschools.kit.edu/production_operations_management.php

9 Global Manufacturing Management

NTNU Norway https://www.ntnu.edu/studies/msgloman/programme-components

10 International Master of Industrial Management (IMIM)

KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Sweden http://www.imimprogramme.org/pagine/PROGRAMME/Aims-and-Objectives/

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GAP WITHIN RELEVANT MASTER PROGRAMS

Table 2 gives an overview of the topics being covered in the ten most relevant master programs identified above. A cross between a master program and a theme indicates that the master program is teaching the theme.

TABLE 2: CONTENTS OF THE RELEVANT MASTER PROGRAMS.

OVERVIEW

The courses and themes most taught are the following (five or more crosses): supply chain management, logistics, quality and maintenance management, manufacturing strategy and management, production strategy, global market and lean. Although all ten master programs teach the subject of operations management, it appears in the curricula under various names, including production management and manufacturing management. Clearly, there is no international consensus on the naming of the subject. This probably also applies to other themes presented in Table 2.

The themes least taught are the following (less than three crosses): Industry 4.0, industrial engineering, inventory management, environmental management, business strategy, the virtual factory and innovation. Inventory management is most likely part of supply chain management or logistics courses; just as environmental management is probably covered by sustainability (or vice versa). Conversely, industrial engineering is often considered as the broad domain consisting of the listed themes and therefore is rarely taught in a single course. Figure 2 provides a visualization of the results presented in Table 2.

Courses 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Industry 4.0 X Industrial engineering X X Supply chain management X X X X X X X IT and ICT X X X Logistics X X X X X Quality and maintenance management X X X X X X X Inventory management X X Production management X X X Manufacturing management X X X X X X Environmental management X Global market X X X X X X X X Production strategy X X X X X Operations management X X X X Sustainability X X X X Business strategy X X Planning and control systems X X X The virtual factory X Lean X X X X X Innovation X X

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The rest of the themes shows a lack of focus on the surroundings of the production and/or company and the innovative and futuristic aspects of the production., which leaves Industry 4.0, industrial engineering, business strategy, the virtual factory and innovation.

FIGURE 2: OCCURRENCE OF THEMES WITHIN RELEVANT MASTER PROGRAMS.

IDENTIFYING GAPS

From the review above, we can conclude that there is still a lack of attention for Industry 4.0 and the virtual factory in the relevant master programs.

Industry 4.0 represents an innovative and sustainable view of operations management, and the term covers many concepts. Smart factory is a new method for a production with increased monitoring and control, with the use of “smart technology” like sensors and autonomous systems (Lucke et al., 2008). Cyber-physical systems involve the merging of physical and digital attributes. Together with the digitalisation of systems, an adaption towards considering human needs when developing products is also happening.

Apart from Industry 4.0, virtual factory was also found to be a neglected theme in the European education of new operations and production managers. Virtual enterprise is the response to the need of remaining competitive in an ever-changing market which makes it necessary to develop a simulation system capable of covering the whole system (Fujii et al., 2000). The virtual factory (sometimes also called the digital twin) provides a framework that enables analysis of the design stage to avoid problems during the next stages.

0123456789

Occurrence of themes

Total

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TOWARDS A LEAN ENGINEERING MASTER PROGRAM

Industry 4.0 represents the interface between the following disciplines: electrical engineering, business administration, computer science, business and information systems engineering and mechanical engineering (Lasi et al., 2014). Combined with the concept of the virtual factory and considered from both a business strategy and industrial engineering perspective, it covers the whole value chain from design to operation of a production facility. Industry 4.0 is revolutionary and requires innovative changes to the organisation structure and hierarchy. Examples are decentralisation of decision-making, decomposition of the classic hierarchy and the change from product- to service-view, which makes the organisation able to gain competitive advantages in a highly dynamic market.

Operations managers of the future should be well prepared to meet the challenges ahead in this volatile environment that Industry 4.0 creates. From the analysis above, we can conclude that no currently existing master program covers all the competences required for this.

As a first step in the right direction, we propose in Table 3 an overview of the major topics that a new or updated master program should offer in order to close the gap between education and industry.

TABLE 3: OUTLINE OF A NEW MASTER PROGRAM CLOSING THE GAP BETWEEN EDUCATION AND INDUSTRY.

Topic Contents Business strategy - What is business strategy?

- Position of organisation in the market - Trade-offs and decisions - Order qualifiers and order winners

Industrial engineering - Performance measurements - Process analysis - Time and budget savings - Monitoring the performance of processes

Virtual factory - Simulation systems - Troubleshooting - Advanced decision-support

Industry 4.0 - Globalisation and market trends - Agile manufacturing - Product-orientation versus service-orientation - Mass production and mass customisation - Smart factory and smart technology

o Sensors and autonomous systems o Manufacturing execution o Maintenance o Training and education

- Cyber-physical systems - Self-organisation - Systems for distribution, procurement, and development of

product and service - Sustainability

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Motivated by this analysis and based on other EuroLEAN+ activities, the staff at the HAN University of Applied Sciences decided to develop a new track on Lean Engineering in their Master of Engineering Systems (see https://www.han.nl/opleidingen/master/en/lean-engineering/). This Master Lean Engineering consists of two technical modules and two Lean modules: Lean Process Development and Lean Product Development, both 15 ECTS. Especially in the module Lean Process Development, video lectures and cases that have been collected in EuroLEAN+ are being used. The elements covered in the module are represented as “the house of Lean Process Development” in Figure 3.

The Master Lean Engineering (MSc) is to a substantial extent devoted to the improvement of high-variety/low-volume organizations, in line with the focus of EuroLEAN+. Without the knowledge and input from EuroLEAN+, it would have been difficult to develop the module Lean Process Development.

FIGURE 3: THE HOUSE OF LEAN PROCESS DEVELOPMENT.

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WAY FORWARD

Although there is a gap in the programs being offered in European higher education institutes with regards to Industry 4.0, we decided among the EuroLEAN+ partners not to proceed with the actual development of a joint master degree and the subsequent submission of an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree (EMJMD) proposal. The reasons for this decision are the following:

- A joint master degree would only be focusing on one of the profiles/personae (that have been identified in WP1) in the target audience of EuroLEAN+.

- An EMJMD focusses on teaching to that single group of master students, whereas the mission and vision of EuroLEAN+ is on creating a knowledge community.

- An EMJMD generally attracts many students from outside the EU, while EuroLEAN+’s target is to train students and personnel for the European low-volume manufacturing industries in order to sustain their competitive position. So, apart from only reaching a small part of the target audience, the EMJMD would mainly reach others.

- All EuroLEAN+ academic partners have their own existing programs in which there is due attention for Lean and room for discussing the new concepts brought along by the Industry 4.0 revolution. The knowledge base and community (Output 1); the case study and best practices database (Output 2); and the online teaching materials (Output 3) can be tailored/customized (and translated) by each partner to best fit in their own teaching offerings, both in academic programs and industry training. The newly developed Lean Engineering track at HAN discussed above is the perfect illustration of this.

- Student and staff mobility among the partners can be sustained by other means than an EMJMD, such as Erasmus exchange agreements, international internships, etc. There does not have to be an EMJMD to sustain the collaboration among the partners.

- An EMJMD has a limited period of financial support which may cause difficulties for the host institutes in keeping the organization and administration up and running after this period.

For these reasons, and in line with the vision and mission of EuroLEAN+, we decided that a more appropriate channel to apply for funding to sustain the collaboration beyond the current Key Action (KA) 2 Strategic Partnership, is the KA2 Knowledge Alliance program. Therefore, Work Package 4 was redirected towards the preparation of a Knowledge Alliance proposal rather than an ENJMD proposal.

A first KA-proposal, submitted in February 2017, received constructive and encouraging feedback but was not accepted. A revised proposal was submitted in February 2018 and was accepted. As a result, the Strategic Partnership initiated within EuroLEAN+ and focusing on Lean for Customized Production will continue its work and expand into the LEAN 4.0 Knowledge Alliance that will focus on the even stronger need for Lean Thinking that will be required in the Industry 4.0 era.

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REFERENCES

FUJII, S., KAIHARA, T. & MORITA, H. 2000. A distributed virtual factory in agile manufacturing environment. International Journal of Production Research, 38, 4113-4128.

LASI, H., FETTKE, P., KEMPER, H.-G., FELD, T. & HOFFMANN, M. 2014. Industry 4.0. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 6, 239.

LUCKE, D., CONSTANTINESCU, C. & WESTKÄMPER, E. 2008. Smart factory-a step towards the next generation of manufacturing. Manufacturing systems and technologies for the new frontier. Springer.