Combining traditional teaching methods and PBL for teaching and learning of lean manufacturing

This study aims at integrating two teaching approaches to enhance Lean Manufacturing (LM) learning in a postgraduate course and verify their effectiveness through comparing students’ performance and learning preferences. The proposed methodology incorporates PBL (problem-based learning) approach into traditional teaching methods. The method was applied with graduate students from a Brazilian public university, whose learning preferences were subsequently identified. The verification of effectiveness is undertaken through a comparative analysis of students’ performance after each course. The findings indicate that PBL may be an effective complementary method for LM learning, especially because it exposes students to actual problems when implementing LM.