Abstract:

The critical thinking and the problem solving are two of the most demanded transversal competences by the companies. Independently of the job position, these skills will be decisive in the quality of the tasks and the productivity of the worker. Thus, it is key to work these abilities in the school and especially during the vocational training programs.

The Lean philosophy was born to improve the flow of value through manufacturing processes. Based on this approach many tools and techniques have been developed to systematically identify and solve problems. Therefore, students can learn and train these techniques to improve the way they face troubles. The core idea is to identify and analyze the constituent parts of the problem and then develop creative solutions that tackle all these parts.

However, despite their practical usefulness in any professional career, the teaching of these techniques is mainly carried out in organizational engineering studies. Thus, this work presents a didactic proposal to teach Lean principles and practice their implementation techniques, especially those focused on problem-solving, in Vocational Training. To do it, the targets, the learning outcomes, and the key competences are identified. Moreover, the contents to achieve these aims, are structured and linked with the proper didactic methodology. Finally, a time scheduling, and an evaluation procedure are proposed.

Keywords:

Lean, vocational training, problem solving, didactic proposal.