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The Lean Enterprise Systems summer camp offers students the opportunity to travel to the
United States, to the campus of The University of Tennessee to learn lean systems techniques
from leading researchers and professionals in the field. Set against the backdrop of
the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville is a place
of beauty and advanced learning. As the flagship University in Tennessee, UT is an academic
leader in research and scholarship. Founded in 1794, the University of Tennessee is one
of the oldest public universities in the country, and has a long tradition of success. UT is
dedicated to making advances in scientific research and is partnered with the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory, a laboratory that houses two of the world’s fastest super computers
and attracts some of the best minds in the world. The College of Engineering is at the
forefront of UT’s initiative to further its research goals. Its classrooms are filled
with the best and brightest students and are led by some of UT’s most distinguished faculty
members. Nowhere is this more the case than in the Industrial and Information Engineering
department, where they teach lean systems. I can tell you that we have a tremendous amount
of experience, both academically as well as with industry in the area of lean. We’ve
probably worked with over 200 companies, we have a significant number of research projects
that we have worked on, we have publications in the area, we have graduate students, we
have masters, and the Ph. D. levels. So we have a tremendous amount of expertise in this
area to the point that we have not only worked with industry, we have worked with educational
systems, we have worked with government, and we have a ton of experience that we can share
with people. In all, the core team studying Lean at UT constitutes one of the largest
academic groups in the country, working on the forefront of research and best practices
in Lean. But what is Lean? Lean systems is the ability to make processes and systems
within industry, within government or any other place more efficient and more reliable. And
never before has the field of Lean systems been more important than it is today. Right
now the world is very competitive and you need to become competitive, you need to reduce
cost, you need to have better quality and you need to develop a system that helps you
sustain this in the long term. It’s changing the environment where employees aren’t just
doing their job but they’re also improving their work on a daily basis. So it’s this
culture shift for a company to move to that point. Basically you empower your people
to create ideas and allow them to solve everything from the source. But Lean is not only for
engineers. Lean can be applied in any environment and by everyone. There has to be a leader,
there has to be a person that guides the improvement or the system in an organization. And THAT
is what you will learn during your stay at the Lean Enterprise Systems summer camp—you
will gain the knowledge and skills you will need to look at any organization and make
it MORE successful. The camp consists of a 5-week program, designed to be informative
AND fun. For the first week, you will work from home on distance-learning materials to
help get you up to speed. Then you will make your way to the United States where you will
spend four weeks in Knoxville, Tennessee with a diverse group of students from around the
world. While you’re here, not only will you learn from UT’s experts, but you’ll
also get the unique opportunity to learn from leaders in the industry. We bring people
that are practicing in industry, we bring experts in simulation, we bring different
experts that can talk to these individuals that truly are experts in their field—so
these students are exposed to people that are actually doing that work. We have selected
companies that have been doing lean manufacturing. But these are of course, transnational companies
that have a lot of resources and have been doing it for a long time. And the students
have a chance to visit these environments to see and learn from what they do and then
replicate that to the companies where they need to solve a problem. So not only will
students get the chance to learn how large U.S. companies solve lean problems, but they
will also be asked to take what they have learned and work in teams to help large corporations
solve real-world lean problems. I’m the lean processing coordinator for East Tennessee
Children’s Hospital. East Tennessee Children’s Hospital is a private, independent, not for
profit hospital and it serves all the children of East Tennessee. East Tennessee Children’s
Hospital is but one of many organizations that participants of the summer camp have
had the opportunity to work with. At the end of the summer camp, students get the opportunity
to present their ideas to the executives of these companies. Every single company that
the students have worked with thus far have taken their ideas and implemented them in
the real world. When we work with the students we tell that to them up front; we want you
guys to come up with solutions that we can really implement because we value their ideas
and their experience and we want to implement these ideas. My project was in East Tennessee
Children’s hospital. And I was working there with a group of classmates for four weeks.
We developed a project in the distillation area and the thing we had to do was to make
improvement proposals using lean manufacturing tools. And it was amazing to really work with
international people and to talk in English all the time and to learn about their way
of working. The real world experience is very, very important because in academia they
give you a test question. But in the real world you have to define that problem. You
have to go in there and say, okay, this is what I need to do, this is the information
that I need to solve it, and then to solve that problem. And then actually in the real
world, you have to make that work. Getting a chance to see how this applies—I mean,
all that you have learned and all that you have been taught—how it could help a big
company solve their problems; I think there’s no better methodology to embrace learning.
But learning isn’t the only thing that the summer camp is about. It’s not just
about the classroom; it’s not just about studying; it’s also about the experience
of the area. We try to make it a very enriching cultural experience. From any program I
have seen, how these students were taken care of when they were here was truly first class. So
the students come and work during the weekdays but on the weekends we plan activities to
take them to the Smokey Mountains, Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, Sevierville, we take them
shopping, and they go out to restaurants and all the fun places that we have around. It’s
basically to get them to know a little more about the culture of the South in the United
States. You’ll be able to visit museums, enjoy the arts, work out in some of UT’s
state of the art exercise facilities, all while making friendships that will last a
lifetime. They just become very good friends and they keep in touch and who knows; maybe
it could be a friendship and maybe it could be a business relationship in the future,
but you get to know a lot of people here. I think once you experience East Tennessee,
you really appreciate the beauty of what we have here. You appreciate the people, you
appreciate the mountains, you appreciate the culture; you appreciate everything that we
have in East Tennessee. The Lean Enterprise Systems summer camp offers you everything
you could want from a summer camp experience and you’ll come out of it with the tools
you’ll need to successfully face the competitive nature of today’s world.
For more information about the camp and to learn how to sign up, please visit: utlean.utk.edu
We hope to see you soon.