Resource Productivity Taught Well: How Learning Factories Can Support Knowledge Transfer on a Multifaceted Subject

Resource productive operations are about more than just reducing waste and improving energy efficiency; they can create long-term advantages in costs, risk reduction, and innovation resulting in financial benefits and decreased environmental impact of industrial processes. Designed as an analytics-supported operations management approach that uses performance metrics, they assist decision making and can lead to operational excellence. We demonstrate how experiences from the process industry were incorporated into a new learning module of the LEAD Factory at Graz University of Technology. By introducing the key concepts of ‘profit per hour’ and ‘theoretical limit’, participants are sensitized to ‘variable cost opportunities’ and can experience the complexity of multi-parameter systems and trade-offs between process variables. To master the complexity, a KPI tree and bubble diagram are developed during the learning module to identify patterns and interrelations of settings that influence profitability.