LEAN FOR WORK AND LEAN FOR LIFE- Train the trainer to teach Lean skills in VET Erasmus Project

Project Title

LEAN FOR WORK AND LEAN FOR LIFE- Train the trainer to teach Lean skills in VET

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

LEAN FOR WORK AND LEAN FOR LIFE- Train the trainer to teach Lean skills in VET
This was a 2 year long cross-sectoral development project aiming at developing the skills among VET teachers to train their colleagues and students in LEAN skills in innovative ways.” Train the trainer”. The training approach was aiming at being interactive, experiential and inductive.
Lean skills have been claimed to be a “meta-skill”, because it is a way of thinking. Lean skills are applicable to all kinds of organizations, profit or non-profit, industry or service, private or public, big or small as well as to any type of function within an organization. Lean is an organizational and work method that aims to develop “lean” processes, ie free from waste in forms of cost, time and defects and oriented towards creating value for the customer. Today many education providers also start applying Lean in different ways in their organisations. There exist much Lean material but it is aimed at professionals and not at this target group and they are very costly. This strategic partnership have been developing innovative approaches to professional development of VET teachers/trainers Lean skills in order to train students for working life. The long-term aim is that all students should have Lean skills when they graduate.
The partners in the project were 4 VET educators and one research and development institute from Finland, the Netherlands, Portugal and two in Spain. The Finnish partner was the coordinator. All partners had previous Lean experience and Lean is also included in their strategic goals. The partners Lean work has been carried out together with associated partners from working life that have offered interesting visits, presentations and allowing us to make authentic picture material. The actual project group consisted of 12 persons including the project coordinator from Vamia. Several of the group members had not been part of international projects before.
The objectives were to:
– To build capacity and confidence of teachers/trainers in teaching Lean skills in an innovative way
– Develop Key competences of life long learning for the participating teachers as part of capacity building
– To increase capacity of each organizations Lean development and international work.
This was be done by developing a high quality training package(scope:18 h) including 4 intellectual outputs that were piloted with VET teachers in each partner organisation as the LTT event was cancelled due to Covid-19. All together 24 teachers took part in a pilot.
Content of the course:
1. A Basic Lean theory training package – What is Lean? Why Lean? (7 chapters based on Lean principles were produced)
2. A High quality toolbox with Lean group exercises ( 7 group excercises and 1 individual excercise with both written and video instructions ere produced)
3. A Digital environment with individual Lean exercises (3 digital environments representing service-, technical- and office environment each one including 8 elements)
4. A Teacher/trainer instruction manual on how to deliver the course.
Each partner country was in charge of running one work package. All partners have contributed to all work packages.
All the material is found on the project web page in Finnish, Swedish, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese. The material can be used on line or downloaded. http://www.leanforworkandleanforlife.eu/

During the project 4 transnational meetings were carried out face-to -face. One in each partner country. The LTT -piloting event and the final meeting was run on-line due to Covid. The Covid did not affect the results of the project. The project ended with an European webinar presenting the outcomes. The project was part of the European Vet Skills Week. The interest was large both among VET schools and companies.
Each participating organisation is now having 6 teachers and the project workers that can use the training material and train others. There now exist a ready to deliver course in Lean for VET staff and students with supporting exercises, games and 360 virtual environments. During the piloting on-line it was discovered that the course and several of the exercises also can be delivered on-line. The content of the project has been and will also be used in other Erasmus funded projects. A new Erasmus project has been funded that will combine Sustainability, Circular economy and Lean – Train2Sustain. The idea is that the new project is a continuation to the Lean for work and Lean for life project.
The long term impact of this project is that VET graduates possess appreciated Lean skills, are attractive on the labour market and the Industry in Europe has a high quality and productive workforce in order to be competitive on the global market.
We also hope that interest to implement Lean and deliver Lean skills in VET spread through these project results and dissemination and that the material will be used by others

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 114745 Eur

Project Coordinator

VAASAN KAUPUNKI & Country: FI

Project Partners

• ESCUELA PROFESIONAL COMARCAL LEA-ARTIBAII
• STICHTING ONDERWIJSGROEP TILBURG
• ATEC – Associação de Formação para a Industria
• LEARTIKER, SCOOP