Teaching Lean with Virtual Reality: Gemba VR

Teaching a Lean masterclass in the metaverse

“…These included the low resolution especially of the main plenary presentation, the difficulty to connect to others and the difficulty of taking notes. These points have also been raised in the extant literature (Netland et al, 2020b;Akulenko et al, 2021). Again, taking our own thoughts into account, the largest problem was that of the labour-intensive nature of using the VR platform, including: learning how to use the technology; learning how to envisage delivery in VR and how a course needs to be modified from our existing slideware and physical workshop paradigm, for example, more workshops and how to engage with delegates; translating material from existing slideware formats to formats appropriate for VR, for example, with muted colours and larger font to minimise negative neurological effects; coordinating between teachers, event managers, course production managers and VR programmers and checking final versions pre-delivery; the delivery of the course itself with two teachers, one in-VR event manager and one Teams based technology help-desk person rather than one teacher and one event manager which would have been more normal at similar physical courses; and checking on the course effectiveness and making further developments, in terms of technology, content and organisation.…”

“…Benefits. The overwhelming positive comment is evolving around how the hedonistic effect of the VR platform and how "interesting"/"amazing"/"extraordinary"/"remarkable" the experience was (41) as well as the fact that it was "exciting"/"fun"/"enjoyable" (7) as expected from the literature (Netland et al, 2020a(Netland et al, , 2020bBadets et al, 2020;Altalla, 2021).…”

“…The majority of responses were in the technology area. The single largest response (9) was how we might leverage the VR technology better in terms of including 360°/3D tours as had been reported in the literature (Netland et al, 2020a(Netland et al, , 2020bGottini et al, 2021). Also, receiving a large number of suggestions (8) was the idea of including a wider range of blended technologies.…”

“…VR environments have previously been explored as an element of Lean teaching in a small number of cases, the most prominent being at ETH Zurich (Netland et al, 2020a(Netland et al, , 2020bGottini et al, 2021). Their work involved immersive experiences where, as part of their course, students were offered VR of real factories where they could actively explore the virtual content guided by assignment questions.…”

“…Their work involved immersive experiences where, as part of their course, students were offered VR of real factories where they could actively explore the virtual content guided by assignment questions. This was initially done through open access 360° VR archive material from Toyota and ABB factories (Netland et al , 2020b), then 360° VR archive material with interviews with staff from ABB (Netland et al , 2020a) and most recently with 360° VR material developed in partnership with Hilti (Gottini et al , 2021). Other examples of the use of Lean VR have been within a learning factory (Riemann and Metternich, 2022), for simulations of bicycle manufacturing (Badets et al , 2020), a production line simulation to teach various hard Lean tools and techniques (Gadre et al , 2011), toy car and automotive assembly line (Aqlan et al , 2020) and various other virtual learning factories (Weidig et al , 2014).…”