• Cotutela con mondo esterno

The course fits into the overall program curriculum pursuing some of the defined general learning goals. In particular, the course contributes to the development of the following capabilities:

• Understand context, functions, processes in a business and industrial environment and the impact of those factors on business performance

• Design solutions applying a scientific and engineering approach (Analysis, Learning, Reasoning, and Modeling capability deriving from a solid and rigorous multidisciplinary background) to face problems and opportunities in a business and industrial environment

• Interact in a professional, responsible, effective and constructive way in a working environment, also motivating group members

The student successfully taking this course is expected to:

Understand the context, and the problem to solve / opportunity to improve

Apply scientific methods and tools to collect data, analyse them in a structured way so to find the root causes of the problem, design countermeasures, implement them, check the results and take consequent actions

Interact with other members of the team that is working on the problem, and with the other people involved, in a constructive way  

The course has three parts that run in parallel 

TOOLBOX

To provide analytical and problem solving tools:

1. A framework for problem setting and problem solving: the famous A3 of Toyota Business Practice.
2. Measurement Sytem Analysis
3. Analysis and graphical representation of a data set
4. Design of Experiment
5. Simulation
6. Clustering
7. Anova
8. Multicriteria decision making

SOFT SKILL

Seminars to:

1. Better understand and manage relationships and time
2. Develop effective presentations

LAB IMPROVEMENT PROJECT

Competences in Operations management and logistics are extremely useful

Additional competences in Industrial Technologies are also appreciated

Basic knowledge of accounting

good knowledge of basic mathematics and statistics

Individual exam on tools and methods

Students will undertake an induvidual exam on the tools and methods which is made of 2-3 exercises presenting the quantitative analysis of a present situation in a company: the student is requested to understand the problem, identify correctly the right analitical tools to use, use tham to find the casues of the problem and discuss them. A question may require to propose a solution (contermeasures to solve the problem) and discuss it

Group project work in managing improvement

The studest address a practical problem in a company, and the evaluation is based on two aspects: one is related to the output, though the evaluation of a final report and the feedback from the company (understanding of the project, correctness of tools applied, and effectiveness and efficiency of the solution implemented). The other aspect is related to the process, i.e. how the project has been carried out, how problems and perturbation have been handled, and how relationships with the team mates and the other people involved have been managed. This evaluation is performed by a the Academic tutor that supervises the group work, meeting with the team once a week, and takes into consideration also the evaluation of the company tutor, who also met the team frequently during the project.