The Faculty on the Factory Floor: Kata in the Classroom

Dr. Steve Martin, Principal Lecturer, Coventry University

Businesses require universities to produce not only well educated graduates but graduates who can have an immediate impact on business performance. Lean as a practice is at the very core of delivering this competitiveness. Theoretically, the philosophy and principles of Lean are not difficult to comprehend the practice of Lean however needs just that – practice, to be fully grasped – fully understood – to be fully implemented. The question then is how best to educate students – the next generation of employees – about Lean? 

 Coventry University, in a joint venture with Unipart Manufacturing Group (UMG), is offering an innovative approach to tackling this question with the first ‘Faculty on the Factory Floor’. A short presentation will introduce this exciting departure from the ‘traditional’ teaching and learning approach – one that sees young people working alongside industry colleagues, applying theory directly to ‘live’ UMG shop-floor improvement projects in each of the three-years of full-time study towards a manufacturing engineering degree – as a means of stimulating debate around the question of: “how best to deliver learning about Lean not just to the students studying but also implications for the staff and HE institutions”?    

The session will start with a plenary introduction to the topic through the sharing of the Coventry ‘Kata in the classroom’ approach followed by a ‘buzz session’ – small participant groups divided from the larger plenary group to engage in lively debate sharing their ideas, opportunities, problems, challenges and solutions before closing with feedback to the group as whole before closing the session