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Activation

IL uses a large number and variety of activities which enable the learner to synthesize and use the new knowledge in many different ways. Learning Activities focus on games that attempt to involve multiple intelligences at the same time while often practicing use of new knowledge. Win-Lose-and-Draw involves teams of students drawing pictures of key concepts while teammates guess the correct answer. Charades is a variation along the same lines. Other activities include "Jeopardy"-like quizzes, role plays and skits to practice new skills, and creative art, drama or story-writing projects.

Culminating Activities

A large-group activity is planned at the end of major instructional units to summarize information and bring closure to the learning experiences. Examples of Culmi­nating Activities include dramatic presentations, brain-storming learning's, and collective mind-maps.

Assessment

This step completes the cycle by requiring output of the learner. Tools used to assess learning include creative tests and quizzes, "show that you know" demonstrations or Projects Demonstrating Excellence (PDE's), and brain­storms of how the learner can apply the new knowledge on-the-job.

Demonstrations

The author will demonstrate IL techniques by leading two exercises during the presentation: a decoding body sculp­ture of MRPII and an activation body sculpture of Setup Reduction.

Applications of IL—How Has IL Been Used?

Kodak Rochester

In the late 80's, Kodak management realized that to educate the entire workforce on two key initiatiatives, MRPII and the Kodak Quality Leadership Process (similar to TQM) would mean spending tremendous resources to train more than 10,000 people over a few years. Kodak chose to use IL to effectively accomplish this massive task. From a large pool of candidates from shop floor supervision, staff and management, a team of over 20 instructors were finally certified in IL by Peter Kline Associates. This "Learning Leaders Team" became a self-managed team that designed and delivered a curriculum of more than a dozen courses. Thousands of Kodak employees were trained in MRPII, JIT, and QLP using IL between 1991 through 1994. Currently, the Learning Leaders Team consists of nine in­structors/consultants offerring the courses in the following subjects: MRPII, JIT/Cycle Time Reduction, Empowerment/ Teambuilding, ISO9000, Performance Management, Integra-tive Learning, Diversity and Capital Management.

Author's Experience

The author was exposed to IL concepts as an Industrial Engineering facilitator in the mid-80's and as a manufac­turing manager in 1991. As manager of Kodak's captive folding carton printing unit, I saw IL as a excellent vehicle to begin shifting the traditional culture of my shop floorteam toward the culture needed for survival—the TQM and JIT mindset of variability reduction, elimination of waste and continuous improvement. First, I had the Kodak Learning Leaders Team facilitate a QLP and JIT workshop for my team. I participated and taught a module on leadership. Reaction was excellent—a positive atmosphere for change was fostered which had never existed before. Secondly, I designed an IL-based workshop to launch a major Setup Time Reduction initiative. This was also successful as the team achieved a 40% reduction in setup time in less than six months, saving over $300,000 annu­ally. Finally, I used the IL team again to teach Performance Management as we launched an empowerment process for the team to manage its own performance measures. In all cases, the IL training transferred a great amount of infor­mation to the team very quickly and positively, supporting both direct application to our team objectives and the desired culture change.

APICS Rochester

I began applying IL to my teaching of Production Activity Control and MRPII Overview in 1992. The student reaction to the techniques has been extremely positive. Course evaluation ratings, measured on a ten point scale have improved from an average of 7.7 before IL to 8.9 after IL, an improvement of 16%.

To be Continued