Education approach in Japan for management and engineering of systems

Abstract

Designing and managing systems that are sustainable requires a new approach to thinking and learning about the management and engineering of systems. This paper describes a university curriculum in Japan that embodies a new approach to education about enterprises systems (and specifically knowledge about the Toyota Production System (lean)). Referred to as Collective System Design, the new learning approach emphasizes the tone of the system participants and a language for system design to codify the understanding gained during a system design and learning process. © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education.