Anabela C. Alves

University of Minho · School of Engineering

This poster describes how first-year Industrial Engineering and Management students, organized in teams and integrated in a Project-Based Learning active learning methodology involving courses like Calculus, Linear Algebra, Programming of Computers, Introduction to Economics Engineering, and Industrial Engineering, developed a project with the purp...

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) emerged as a technology that promises revolutionary gains through the automation of transactional processes, based on specific rules. Through the application of RPA, organizations aim to increase their operational efficiency. The objective of the project described in this article was to develop a automatized procedu...

This paper presents the effectiveness of Kamishibai audits use in restructuring the audit system on a daily basis in the aeronautical sector. This lean tool has a strong visual component allowing to verify if the numerous processes and activities are in accordance with the company’s standards, triggering improvement opportunities in all audited are...

Purpose This paper aims to present a conceptual model, called LOOP, an acronym for Leadership, Organization, Operation and People, regarding the pull system implementation in Lean companies. Lean should be holistically implemented to achieve the performance for what it is known. Pull is one of the Lean thinking principles, and it is the production...

The last few years have seen a massive transformation of the global industrial landscape, thanks to the emergence of Industry 4.0 and the disruptive technologies it enables, such as Augmented Reality (AR). This paper presents the result of a project with the primary focus on enhancing the operators’ working conditions and the further definition of...

Personal skills such as communication, leadership, teamwork, can be the key factor for differentiation in a technological career. Attending to this, the authors of this paper were motivated to propose a different course (or Curricular Unit, CU) to students of Higher Education level. In this way, this paper describes the aim, objectives, methodology...

This generation of students is a generation that needs a meaningful education. This implies that students must believe that the contents they are learning has a purpose. The best way to do this is by allowing them to pull what they want to learn. However, this is difficult to achieve because the contents of the course is pre-determined by the teach...

Purpose Since few studies have explored and advanced on the development of measures of knowledge waste, the purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a scale for measuring the waste of knowledge. Design/methodology/approach A research was carried out in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) divided into five distinct stages, three qualitativ...

Lean thinking is a fundamental mindset to promote societal transformations and prepare society to properly adopt and use Industry 4.0 technologies. These technologies continue to rapidly developed, and have started to evolve to Society 5.0 and Industry 5.0. Although, these technologies may provide economic, social and of sustainability benefits, th...

The importance of ergonomics in the workplace of organizations resulting from changes in the scenario of production of goods and services in recent decades has brought great challenges for them, in reconciling productivity and workers’ well-being. This article is the result of research carried out in a company that produces metallic parts for autom...

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the perception of Lean management practices and its influence on sustainability practices in Higher Education Institutions (HEI). The theoretical background was supported by Lean management and sustainable practices in HEI, which were used to design the research model. The research methodology comprises a...

Project-based learning (PBL) is a challenging learning methodology, also for teachers, questioning common assumptions of teachers, like control over the classroom and reliance on expert knowledge. Most challenging is teamwork. Team teaching has been explored in many disciplinary areas, both in traditional as well as in PBL curricula. Teachers may f...

Industrial engineering and management (IEM) is considered a softer type of engineering. IEM professionals have been slow in implementing many changes that have occurred in production, ranging from mass production to mass customization paradigms embedded in Industry 4.0. This chapter introduces and discusses the role of IEM professionals in dealing...

COVID-19 pandemic have provided us an opportunity to retrospect, our traditional practices, operations, supply chain functions and their linkages with firm competitiveness. The recovery to the new normal of operational excellence is the challenging task ahead. The critical a question in post-pandemic recovery can be—How can the firms rebound to ope...

This paper describes an assignment given to fourth-year Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) students in a Project-Based Learning (PBL) developed in the context of university-business partnerships. The aim of this assignment was students assess sustainability business effectiveness in an industrial context. To achieve this, they must use an...

This paper presents how two teachers of different courses of the third year of the Integrated Master of Industrial Engineering and Management from the University of Minho engaged students in a learning experience. By doing this, teachers considered that it is easier for the students to learn the course contents. The goal of this experience was to c...

This chapter aims to describe the assessment practices used in a PBL(Project-based Learning) approach, adopting an integrated view, where teaching, learning and assessment are student-centred. It explores the assessment methods, moments and participants in the teaching and learning process. Assessment procedures, criteria and tasks will be carefull...

Lean Production has been documented in the last decades as a management methodology that brings many benefits. Nevertheless, many companies faced difficulties in implementing it and in having success. This happens due to the existence of some barriers to its implementation. This fact also occurs in the multinational company studied in this paper. A...

Health crisis caused by COVID-19 had a significant impact on the activities and performance of companies worldwide, namely in industries. In this context, the adaptation of companies to the markets and to the new demands of consumers, readapt to strategies, processes, products, and approaches to the market, become paramount. In the case of companie...

Since 1990, attempts to implement lean, especially by production companies, have grown in number and depth. With the publication of the book Lean Thinking, lean projects quickly spread to other activity sectors, but achieving success in such implementations is not something that can be easily accomplished. Research is in progress to identify why so...

Lean Thinking is a management philosophy that aims to do more with less through a process of continuous improvement. By employing Lean Thinking principles, the project presented in this article aimed to obtain improvements in the boats’ hulls and decks lamination process of a shipbuilding company. After analysing the current process, some problems...

Continuous improvement is a constant concern of companies operating in strongly competitive markets. This means to be constantly unsatisfied with the company status-quo, searching for opportunities to improve. The goal is to increase business efficiency and effectiveness, providing value to the client. In a fast-paced compass industry with complex...

This paper discusses online student assessment which is one of the major concerns of higher education institutions during these pandemic times, forcing teachers to teach and assess in different ways and conditions than when using regular methods. Online assessment brings more challenges for the teachers and the fear that students could cheat more t...

The structure of car seats is becoming increasingly complex, with mixing of wire conformation and plastic injection. The plastic over-molding process implies some labor, which can be reduced if novel solutions are applied in this manufacturing area. The handling of the wires used in car seats is the main problem identified in the process, wasting t...

This paper discusses collaboration between teachers in project-based learning (PBL) environments in the engineering context. PBL is a challenging active learning methodology, not only for students but also for teachers. Challenges for teachers include, for example, the need to search for new knowledge demanded by the PBL project theme and the diffi...

In this paper, we describe and apply a new model for evaluating the influence of Project-Based Learning (PBL) active learning methodology over the student’s skills. The proposal is based on the adaption of multicriteria outranking algorithm to study the influence of PBL in the skills that Industrial Engineering and Management students felt they acq...

Lean Thinkingaligned with Information technology can promote competitiveness for modern enterprises, while improve the performance of technological activities and eliminate no value-added tasks to the design process of product. The paper is a contextualization of the current wastes evidenced during the research work carried out in a company that su...

This paper aims to present a study of the type of advanced technologies used across manufacturing supply chains in supporting the main processes of the supply chain operations reference model (SCOR). It also intends to identify a set of sustainable performance indicators (environmental, economic, and social) suitable to evaluate a supply chain 4.0...

This article discusses the reconfiguration and improvement of electronics components assembly lines through the use of Lean Thinking principles. This reconfiguration was undertaken in a project that followed the action-research methodology. There were three main distinct problems related with the outdated assembly lines. The first came from a diagn...

Lean Production has its roots in the Toyota Production System, introduced before World War II, and is constantly evolving. Its importance as an organizational management model triggers the need to teach it in the academy. Promptly, Lean Education is being taught all over the world. However, teaching Lean using traditional expositive lectures is not...

Lean Thinking principles and methods, in the context of highly valued production systems, are seen as the best practices and essential for competitiveness. Therefore, it requires educators, students, and employees well trained and prepared in Lean concepts to meet these demands. In this context, gamification is becoming a popular resource among edu...

Continuous improvement is an integral part of the management processes of organizations. The success of a company does not involve a linearity of actions, but a constant concern and adaptation to possible changes, in terms of technological or human resources of an organization. Bearing this motivation in mind, this project was developed in a compan...

The state of processes and their improvement progress could be measured by many parameters or indicators. When the overall state of the process is needed several indicators must be determined. In case that there are two states of the process, or two processes to compare, it could be confusing to determine which state, or process, is better. A solut...

Lean Thinking is a philosophy which principles were redesigned from Toyota Production System (TPS) by Womack and Jones of MIT. Currently, Lean Thinking principles are taught in the academy and are applied in all sectors, from production to services. Services is what is provided to students in a university. Teachers provide a service to them, and th...

Project-Based Learning (PBL) is an active student-centered learning methodology. Several schools (of varying degrees of education) have implemented, in different ways, PBL, having as common strands that the student learns in teams, and being challenged in the context of a case-scenario. In Portugal, a PBL methodology has been implemented, in the fi...

The Integrated Project of Industrial Engineering and Management 1 (IPIEM1) is a curricular unit of the first year developed in the first semester of the Integrated Masters degree of Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM11) – University of Minho, Portugal. In the 2019’s 1st semester and in the IPIEM1 previous versions, Project-Based Learning (P...

Lean Thinking has successfully challenged mass production practices, by providing ‘leaner’ processes and supply chains, i.e. with less waste. Industry 4.0 has become an important strategic approach in the technological change of manufacturing and others. It aims to connect the physical and virtual worlds in industrial production. With such automati...

Nowadays, with the daily changes that occur in society, the growing competition between markets where clients are increasingly demanding, companies are forced to innovate and improve, upgrading their efficiency in each process. As a result, companies are progressively giving more and more attention to the production area with a continuous improveme...

In many areas, there is a multitude of terms/designations and definitions for the same concept, leading thus to misunderstanding. This also occurs with the designated Lean Production, which started to be known as a “thing” from the shop floor. However, it was quickly realized that it is much more than that (and should be understood as much more), o...

The aim of JGBC special issue is to understand the potential of operations and supply chains (OSCs) and define newer frameworks and approaches to revive operations and supply chains in post-COVID-19 times. The special issue is expected to delineate the ways to compete through lean, agile, flexible and resilient operations and supply chains to reviv...

This paper aims to mirror the way the European Professors of Industrial Engineering and Management (EPIEM)network perceives itself with a students’ view. Along with a presentation of the status quo of the EPIEM network, a brief survey among students is deployed to get an impression of the perception of EPIEM by its most active partner association -...

Lean Thinking philosophy pursuit continuous improvement and continuous innovation towards economic and eco-sustainable growth by new solutions. Such solutions involve eco-efficient products (goods and/or services) and cleaner production to produce them. Nevertheless, sometimes, there are technical contradictions that inhibited companies to achieve...

This paper describes the results of a Lean project developed in a high fashion garment manufacturer company. In this case, the project intended to promote Lean Thinking on the company by starting implementing some Lean Production tools. The use of these tools allowed to solve identified problems and to reduce wastes. The main wastes identified were...

This paper presents an exploratory study on the knowledge and importance of integrating Lean Education in curricula from the Academy perspective. The study was based on the analysis of participants’ outcomes of workshops settled in international conferences. These workshops were used to promote Lean Education as a fundamental content and competency...

The study presented in this paper aimed to obtain improvements in the production processes and methods used by co-workers of a cork company. For the study, the authors applied the tools and principles of Lean Thinking, Ergonomic, and Total Productive Maintenance. The research methodology used in the project development was the Action-Research, whos...

The role and importance of management staff is very important in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. A high-quality production environment will require mature management staff with experience in working with new technologies, machines, and, especially, data and information. The undertaken research indicates that both in terms of theory and...

Lean production is an organisational management model that increases productivity by eliminating wastes (Muda), physical strain or overburden (Muri), and irregularity (Mura) (3M). These last two are related to the way people work, which is frequently harder instead of smarter. LP helps in achieving smart and effective methods of work. This paper ai...

Global logistic activities related to e-commerce have become very time dependent in recent years. International couriers face everyday issues related to pick-up time windows, lead times delays, express/normal deliveries management, security and VAT management. There are supply chain management methodologies that, based on lean thinking principles i...

Given the current market demands, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are under pressure to change their working methods, implying changes in concepts and practices in order to improve their production systems and processes. Thus, the search for production methodologies, techniques and tools becomes urgent and imperative. One way to achieve t...

This paper reports the administrative processes improvement based on Lean Office tools in an office environment of a University department. Lean tools such as electronic standardization were applied on the six educational projects of the department. Also, some were used to organize the computer desktop and network drives to improve the supporting e...

The global industrial landscape has deeply changed over the last few years and the Industry 4.0 concept has emerged, being enabled by successive disruptive innovations and technological development that have transformed manufacturing processes. This concept is being pointed out as the fourth industrial revolution that embraces a set of new technolo...

Trello is a cloud app based on Kanban concept and also available for desktop mobile devices. The app has plenty of boards that help projects' development under SCRUM concept. Trello is not originally designed as a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) but it is recurrently adopted by one of the paper authors as a VLE for Project-Based Learning (PBL) c...

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the relevance of Lean Thinking principles implementation around the world, both in industry and services, based on the growing number of published case studies and surveys. A comprehensive review has been conducted on case studies and surveys published between 1990 and 2018 describing Lean Production/Thinking...

Over the years, companies have been progressing their management strategies and transforming their production systems to cope with the pressing environmental challenges and remain competitive, prosper and meet the market demands. It is no longer enough to only satisfy the demand. The companies face a new transformation on the way of “doing things”,...

Have you ever noticed that during a production process, unecessary waste occurs, or excessive time is spent in particular areas? Or have you ever encountered a situation in your work environment where a machine could be performing manual labor, while human time would be better spent in other situations? These questions are related to two current ch...

Traditionally, Textile and Clothing industry (TCI) is an industry that naturally consumes large amounts of natural resources (e.g. natural fibers, natural dyes, water and energy) and release chemicals into the atmosphere, water and soil. Lean Production (LP) is an organizational methodology which main key idea is “doing more with less”. A fundament...

This edited book discusses lean production as a suitable platform for global development by developing systems and products in a quicker, costless and sustainable way and educate people for a lean consumption. Lean thinking principles are totally and synergistically aligned with a lot of disciplines and current issues such as logistic, supply chain...

Paper aims This paper presents teachers and students perspectives of integration Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) courses contents into the first year of Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) program through Project-Based Learning (PBL). Originality These perspectives provide strategies that IEM teachers could use to ch...

Lean Thinking has successfully challenged mass production practices, providing greater flexibility in production systems and processes, resulting in "leaner" products and supply chains, i.e., with less waste. More recently, the term Industry 4.0 emerged. It was first used in Germany in 2011 to refer to the 4th industrial revolution. It aims to conn...

Production cells are considered a flexible production system capable to face new market demands. In most cases, this is provided by their capability of reconfiguration, i.e., by removing/adding new equipment needed and/or reusing the existent equipment for the new demand. Nevertheless, some companies are not conveniently exploring this opportunity....

Assembly lines are production systems designed to be oriented to the product and well known to be highly productive. Nevertheless, during this time-frame the product volumes could decrease and the assembly lines, previously very productive and efficient, becomes unproductive and inefficient. This happens in the car electronics components company wh...

The Integrated Master in Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) program has been implementing Project-Based Learning (PBL) for more than 15 years in the first year, first semester. The IEM program is currently attracting students from different programs, using transfer mechanisms, who normally already have passed some of the courses on their o...

The markets globalization erased commercial boundaries and increased the competitiveness of companies all around the world. This competitiveness has forced companies to improve their processes and operations, as well as, their management relationships with suppliers and customers. Emerging from this progress, several needs led to the development of...

The need to increase employees’ productivity in a hypermarket online delivery services is the persuader of the present work. A costumer’ request, through the hypermarket website, initiates the process of collection and delivery of the ordered products. This process briefly comprises to gather the products from the shelves and to report the right in...

Povećani zahtevi za različitim proizvodima postavljaju odredene izazove vezane za oblikovanje prostorne strukture proizvodnog sistema koja u velikom broju slučajeva nije adekvatno rešena što je takože slučaj is a tokovima proizvodnih linija. Ćelijska proizvodnja podrazumeva prostornu strukturu proizvodnog sistema koja omogućava veću produktivnost o...

A aprendizagem baseada em projetos (PBL) é uma metodologia de aprendizagem ativa que coloca o aluno no centro da aprendizagem, forçando o professor a assumir um papel de facilitador e coadjuvante. Esta nova postura docente não é menos importante, porque exige muitas mudanças que devem ser promovidas por estes, em particular, relacionadas à coordena...

An ongoing study about what motivates/demotivates students of an Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) program will be introduced. The reasons behind students’ choice and the main factors that motivate/demotivate them, throughout the different years, will be explored. This study is part of a longitudinal one based on information from IEM stud...

Interdisciplinary projects (IP) carried out by teams of students have been recognized as an important approach for learning in several fields and at several levels of education. In higher education, it can be an important drive for student learning motivation and an advantage for students when entering the working marketplace. The experience acquir...

Competitiveness in a world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, known by the acronym VUCA, is accelerating companies towards innovation. To ensure business continuity and control risk, companies must manage operations and projects with skilled teams and applying project management methodologies. The research described...

The purpose of this paper is to present some results of an ongoing project that intends to improve internal logistics visibility using RFID at an electronics company of the automotive sector. The first step of this project was to identify the traceability problems of raw materials at the company and to design an RFID–based solution to solve such pr...

In the last few years, the global economy and market requirements have been changing rapidly. The increasing demand for high complexity and the last technological developments potentiated by industrial transformation have led to the development of more complex and smarter products with new capabilities However, producing smart products means deep c...

Companies that implemented Lean Production in shop-floor operations continuously search for new improvements opportunities. Indirect or support areas such as logistic departments has a lot of such opportunities. This was the case of the company of the study presented in this paper. Thus, this paper presents some results of a project that explored t...

Teamwork tutors are one of the characteristic elements of the Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology. PBL is considered to be an active learning methodology that involves the students in their own learning, by promoting the development of a large interdisciplinary project. The project runs typically over one full semester, or longer, and it is su...

Lean Production is considered a management methodology that has been implemented in many industries and services. Nevertheless, Lean experts know that this is not only a management methodology; it is more a philosophy and a new way of life. This is the reason why it is difficult to implement but, even worst, to be successful and to be sustainable....