Lean Production has proved itself a worthwhile production strategy in many distinct industries across all regions of the planet by achieving higher levels of production efficiency. Several authors identified that Lean inadvertently has had significant environmental gains. Such achievements are considered of special relevance in a global and highly competitive economy which is progressively both tied-up and driven by an environmental agenda. The main goal of the present study is to enlighten the contribution of Lean for achieving a better environmental performance of production systems and identify this as an emergent business model for supporting eco-efficiency.

Purpose: Project-Based Learning (PBL) is considered to be an active learning methodology which can be used to develop both technical and transversal competences in engineering programs. This methodology demands a great deal of work effort from the students and also from the teachers and it requires a meticulous plan and a well-managed project as well. These activities go far beyond the normal activities in traditional lectures, enabling to outpace the difficulties that spur along the way that may be both complex and demotivating. This methodology has been implemented in the Integrated Master Degree on Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM), at one public university in Portugal, since the 2004/2005 academic year. The aim of this paper is to identify and discuss the main difficulties of the implementation of PBL, mainly from the teachers’ perspectives. Additionally, some effective strategies will be recommended to overcome such difficulties.Design/methodology/approach: The perceptions of the teachers were collected through a survey based on six main themes. The participants in the study include eight teachers from the five courses of the first semester of the first year of the IEM program involved in the 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 editions.Findings: Integration of courses in the project; student assessment; growing number of students in each team and the need of physical spaces for them; and compartmentalized knowledge has emerged as the main difficulties. To overcome these difficulties some key strategies were recommended.Originality/value: A new perspective based on course teachers' views and experiences will deepen the understanding of the problems and provide inputs for the development of strategies that may improve the effectiveness of PBL and introduce changes for its successful implementation. These strategies are intended to be transferable to other contexts, as most of the problems and constraints are common to other active learning approaches.

Keywords STEM; PBL; Active and student-centred learning methodologies; Industrial engineering and management

Lean Engineering learning should be compulsory on engineering curricula, and, particularly, on the Industrial Engineering field. Prior to the integration on the Industrial Engineering curriculum, Lean Engineering was already implemented by many organizations and, often, fostered by consulting companies. For this reason, if engineering students were taught about Lean Engineering, they would be better prepared to assume a leadership role in their organizations and/or to better communicate with Lean consultants. Based on a literature review and on the authors’ practice, this paper discuss some approaches that have been used for Lean Engineering learning. Some learning experiences implemented in an engineering master’s degree are presented which make use of effective educational tools based on active methodologies, such as hands-on simulation, Problem or Project-Based Learning (PBL), Conceive-Design-Implement and Operate (CDIO) initiative, among others. This paper also presents these tools and how they address Lean Engineering learning through the lens of Lean Thinking principles. Their advantages in Lean Engineering learning are discussed by gathering the academic and practitioners’ communities opinions. These are based on final year projects’ reports, feedback from students and from organization supervisors.

Production systems are often kept unchanged for long periods of time despite changes on both the marketplace and on the management model. Over relevant timeframes, this stagnation causes an accumulation of inefficiencies and wastes that leads to unproductive production systems. This paper presents a number of case studies on the redesign of production systems within the context of Lean Production. The findings revealed that fresh graduates in industrial engineering conducting their Master's project, acquainted with different production paradigms, are able to identify a number of problems and the respective need for the redesign of the production system. A number of benefits were observed among the companies that enabled the required changes, namely an improved productivity and flexibility as well as a reduction on the shop floor Lean' wastes.