From ABC’s to “Learning to See”: Insights and Outreach from an Experiential Project Course

1. From ABC’s to “Learning to See”: Insights and Outreach from an Experiential Project Course Keith A. Willoughby Edwards School of Business University of Saskatchewan

2. A bit about me • Associate Professor in Operations Management, Edwards School of Business, University of Saskatchewan • Associate Dean – Academic • Research interests: • Lean/ Six Sigma process improvement methods • Health care analysis

3. Now to get us started • If the following are important: • Data-driven decision making • Exploring situations from all sides • “Learning to see” how problems can be solved

4. Then how about… • A pop quiz!

5. Unpacking your responses • For those of you who chose “F”, why did you make that selection? • For those of you who chose “D”, why did you make that selection?

6. This is based on a real story • Rewind back to the days of World War II (1939-1945) • Fighter planes engaged in combat missions

7. Patrick Blackett • British physicist • Director of Operational Research with the British Admiralty, 1942-1945

8. Fighter plane damage • Analysts noted all damage inflicted by enemy planes • Gave the recommendation that armour be added in the most heavily damaged areas

9. Another suggestion • Some of the crew in an aircraft should be removed, so that fighter plane loss would result in losing fewer personnel • This was rejected by the Royal Air Force commanders

10. What did Blackett propose? • Presented the seemingly counter-intuitive recommendation for the armour-plating of aircraft • Armour should be placed in the areas which were completely untouched by damage in the bombers which returned • Why would he make this recommendation?

11. Results • The number of lost fighter planes decreased • Provides a striking example of exploring problems from various perspectives

12. Undergrad class - 2008

13. Undergrad class - 2009

14. Workshop overview • 1. Background details • 2. Course specifics • 3. Course management

15. Workshop overview • 4. What will I do differently next time? • 5. Why am I eager to deliver this course again?

16. Saskatoon, SK ~13,414 km’s to Nairobi

17. Edwards School of Business

18. Particulars • 1,800 undergraduate business students • 6 majors • ~65 faculty (FTE)

19. Environmental factors contributing to this course • 1. Success of business cooperative education program • 8 month work assignments • All business majors involved (about 50 students per year) • 100% employment upon graduation

20. Environmental factors • 2. Growing awareness of community service/ project-based learning in our curriculum: • Management consulting class • International business team projects • Strategic marketing plans

21. Environmental factors • 3. Relatively low number of OR/OM majors • Selfishly, we wanted some way of raising the profile of our discipline

22. Workshop title • From ABC’s to “Learning to See” • Recognized that all of our students took one core operations course • 2nd year of their program

23. But after that… • Only a handful enrolled in our elective courses • We wanted to get them from their ABC’s (basic OR material) to “Learning to See” • Cultivate a sense that OR methods apply to real process analysis and improvement problems

24. The ABC’s • This was also my set of ABC’s, since it was the first time I’d ever offered such a course • I’ve just begun my journey in this course, but hopefully my material can interest others in pursuing such an option

25. “Learning to See” • This title borrows from a series of training materials produced by the Lean Enterprise Institute

26. Course specifics • 13-week semester (January to April) • Class met twice each week for 80 minutes per “session”

27. Main course objective • To provide students with experience in applying OR principles and tools to the analysis of actual (and non-trivial) problems facing real organizations

28. Course deliverable • Student groups would undertake a real project with a real client • The major deliverables were a written project report and oral presentation • No midterms or final exams!

29. Should clients pay? • Our current approach is to provide these projects free of charge • This may change as the course matures and we hone our collective skills

30. Grading breakdown • Participation: 10% • Project charter: 5% • Interim project reports: 10% • Final project report: 45% • Project presentation: 20% • Lessons learned report : 10%

31. Class size • What is an appropriate enrolment? • This is driven by how many individuals are assigned per student team

32. Class size • If the groups are small (e.g., 2 people), then the instructor needs to “manage” several client projects • If the groups are large (e.g., 5-6), some students may freeload on the contributions of others

33. Our experience • We targeted an enrollment of 15-25 students • 2011 class featured 18 students • Permitted 5 groups of 3-4 students each

34. Enrolment specifics • 12 male, 6 female • Majors: • Management: 6 • OM: 5 • Finance: 3 • Marketing: 3 • Human resources: 1

35. Client selection • How do you get clients to agree to participate? • Admittedly, the “pro bono” nature of the course helped!

36. What is a perfect project? • Non-trivial and challenging but feasible within a 13-week time frame • We didn’t want “low-hanging fruit” • Meaningful to the client, motivating to the student group

37. The perfect project • Utilizes different OR approaches: • Analytical (spreadsheet) modeling • Lean/ process improvement

38. How did we obtain clients? • Personal contacts in the industry • Approach our colleagues’ contacts (even those from other disciplines) • My sense is that our “first run” was rockier than it will be in the future

39. Course management • Assigning students to teams • Student-selection or professor-selection?

40. Professor-selection! • I deliberately balanced the teams for gender, business major, year in program, etc. • Concern with student-selection is that friends organize with other friends

41. Course management • Class periods involved: • Discussions about setting appropriate milestones, group dynamics, various OR/OM methods • Guest speakers

42. Project industries • Health care – 3 • Supply chain management – 1 • Community service – 1 • The following slides provide an OR flavor of the various projects

43. Project #1: Health region patient flow • Ambulatory care • Orthopedics patients • Two hospitals in Saskatoon

44. Background • Underutilization in capacity in some areas, while other areas are being strained to the limit • Congestion in patient flow could lead to increased waiting and throughput time, as well as decreased staff and patient satisfaction

45. Project #2: Cameco transit warehouse • Cameco is one of the world’s largest uranium companies

46. Background • Cameco operates a “Transit Warehouse” in Saskatoon • Cross-docking facility

47. Cameco mines in northern SK Hundreds of vendors Transit warehouse

48. Background • Unfortunately, the paper-copy packaging slips that Cameco receives from its individual vendors are tremendously non-uniform (size, style, etc.). • The processes involved with organizing these slips are far from satisfactory

49. Background • In the event of an error on a packaging slip, finding the specific slip is a fairly time-consuming and tedious process • How could Cameco better organize its packaging slips? Would digitization help the process? What are the best practices from industry?

50. Project #3: Facility location • Determining the location of Home Care offices throughout Saskatoon • Saskatoon Health Region