LEAD FACTORY

Efficient work involves employing the right methods whether it is on a small or large scale.

Therefore, the institute established a learning factory for the assembly of scooters with industry standard equipment. The LEAD Factory is a miniature industrial manufacturing site containing an assembly line of a product available on the market, a scooter. Lectures and workshops at the LEAD Factory provide knowledge on lean management, energy efficiency, agile operations and digitalization.
Participants learn hands-on to turn an inefficient production process into a leaner, digitized, more energy efficient and agile process during our LEAD Factory workshops. The LEAD Factory is equipped with state-of- the-art technologies.
Prof. Christian Ramsauer experienced the power of learning factories for teaching at the Technical University of Darmstadt and the Technical University of Munich and started the initiative right away at the institute. In 2014, Dr. Markus Hammer, (McKinsey & Company) and Dr. Mario Kleindienst taught the first Learning Factory course with 16 students after three years of development. In 2018, the LEAD Factory became a member of the International Association of Learning Factories.

Hands - On Training in the LEAD Factory

By assembling the TU Graz scooter in a non-optimized initial state of the learning factory, participants analyze the assembly process and identify first improvements. After short, associated theoretical sessions where the basics of industrial engineering, logistics management, lean production and industrial energy efficiency are taught, participants directly return to the LEAD Factory and implement what they have learned. The aim is to actually build an optimized production line and immediately experience the impact of the learned and directly applied methods. Based on the principle of learning by doing workshop participants gather new and sustainable knowledge and can transfer these capabilities much easier to real-life situations.

LEAD Factory as a research platform

Besides practice-oriented training, the LEAD Factory serves as a research platform for advanced manufacturing technologies and processes. As it is a realistic mockup of an assembly area in a manufacturing company, it is designed to serve as a test-bed for state-of- the-art technologies. The direct impact of such technologies can be experienced in LEAD Factory workshops and participants can then discuss the implications and transferability of these technologies to their own facilities.