The TOC tab walks students through the Five Focusing Steps interactively on a simulated production line. Each step updates the throughput and demand metrics live. The SVG diagram highlights WIP accumulation in front of the bottleneck.
Ask students before clicking through: if every station is running at full utilization, why isn't the system delivering at full capacity? The answer is that only the constraint determines system output. Gains at non-constraints are an illusion.
The conveyor belt shows 100 process steps. Approximately 10 are green (value-added) and 90 are red (waste). Before sorting, ask students to estimate the percentage of steps that add value. Most guess far higher than 10%.
After sorting, the DOWNTIME waste cards animate in. Use each card as a prompt: ask students to name an example of that waste from a process they know personally.
If the answer to any of these is no, the step is waste. Use this test to challenge assumptions about which steps are truly necessary.
Key discussion question: If only 10% of steps add value, why does the process have the other 90%? The answer usually involves habit, compliance, legacy systems, and organizational inertia.
The Galton board simulates a normal distribution. Students select a sigma level from 1 to 6 and observe the bell curve narrowing as sigma increases and DPMO dropping dramatically at each level. The DPMO Calculator lets them enter real defect data and calculate their process sigma level live.
Connect this tab back to Lean: waste is often a symptom of variation. A process that is not in statistical control will produce defects regardless of how well it is designed. Lean removes the waste. Six Sigma addresses the underlying variation that generates it.
The Agile tab simulates an improvement team's sprint cycle over a working month. A Kanban board shows work items moving from Backlog through Sprint and Blocked to Done. Students can play the simulation at multiple speeds or advance day by day.
Click any calendar day to see what cadence event occurs and what it accomplishes. The Blocked column is intentional: improvement work always encounters obstacles. The weekly review exists to unblock items and keep velocity up.
The key insight: TOC, Lean, and Six Sigma identify what to improve. Agile is the operating system that gets improvements across the finish line. Without a cadence, improvement initiatives stall in the backlog indefinitely.
These four disciplines work together. Let's talk about how to bring them into your organization.