Teaching Lean Production Through a Simulation Game: An Empirical Study with Undergraduate Business Students

Businesses today operate under the influence of many micro and macro factors, such as competition, digitalization, sustainability, and global and local crises. Under these conditions, it has become necessary to use resources efficiently and without waste. Therefore, the implementation of lean production principles provides significant advantages for businesses. It is of critical importance to teach lean production to both employees and university students who are prospective employees through simulation games. Within this scope, a simulation game covering eight lean production principles was implemented with undergraduate business administration students. Feedback was collected from students, who were playing a simulation game for the first time, through pre- and post-tests, as well as an evaluation questionnaire. The evaluation questionnaire was found to be reliable based on the results of the reliability analysis. According to the findings obtained from the tests and the questionnaire, an increase was observed in the students’ level of understanding of lean production. The Paired Samples t-test indicated that the observed increase was statistically significant. Positive feedback was received regarding the design of the game, while both positive and critical opinions were obtained concerning its implementation.