Training plays a major role in improving work within organisations by ensuring that the appropriate level of knowledge and skills are shared among personnel. It moulds the thinking process and leads to quality performance. However, training which includes a practical aspect usually targets a specific type of trainee and can limit the learning of an individual coming from a different background than that taken into consideration when the training programme was originally developed. This research focuses on training, and attempts to develop a program using a virtual reality (VR) system as a platform to create a simulated working environment which has the flexibility to train staff members of an organisation, who may come from a variety of different professional backgrounds, in the concept of the lean enablers. The main concern of this research is the adaptation of lean training for a virtual environment. Existing training methods have been analysed, along with the various ways in which they can be implemented, and these have been used in this research as a starting point from which to construct the virtual work environment. Through the research, a method has been developed to set up and run a training session using a virtual reality (VR) system by generating a structure to design the modelling elements that compose the virtual workplace, as well as establishing a method so that a trainee can navigate the simulated environment and perform tasks. A program to collect the performance measures and visualise the results has also been developed, with the aim of enabling the evaluation of a simulation run by assessors/trainers. This research covers new ground in providing a simulated working environment, which can suit any trainee’s professional background, to facilitate learning about the lean enablers. It offers the capacity of establishing a simulated work environment which can represent the trainee’s workplace and provide the necessary practical experience in order to grasp the concept taught through the training program. Additionally it offers the capacity for assessors/trainers to observe the performance measures and the trainee’s behaviour, simultaneously, while undertaking a simulation run. These combinations of information can be complementary and enable assessors/trainers in providing the best feedback while improving the learning curve of a trainee. Although training programmes in organisations have provided a number of improvements in completing work with high efficiency and minimum waste, the outcomes collected in this research demonstrate that their benefits can be pushed further in terms of providing a training method which can be accessible to a large variety of sectors.

Organizational leaders use lean training as a process improvement strategy to eliminate waste and inefficiencies in processes. Of the 91% of company leaders who believed lean training was important, 64% of those leaders expressed the perception that workers do not comprehend lean training and methodology. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore how healthcare managers successfully implemented lean training strategies to combat escalating costs. The target population consisted of healthcare managers in a single rural care hospital located in Tennessee who had implemented lean training strategies to train staff in lean principles and lean tools. The conceptual framework for this study was the general systems theory. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with healthcare managers, document review of public hospital data, and public quality reports. Member checking of interview data was used to strengthen the credibility of the findings. Yin's 5-phase qualitative data analysis process was used consisting of compiling the data, disassembling the data, reassembling the data, interpreting the data, and concluding the data. Themes emerged resulting from the use of methodological triangulation of collected data to include improving quality of patient care, teamwork and collaboration, hands-on learning, and training the trainers. The application of the findings may contribute to social change by identifying strategies related to lean training to address inefficiencies, improve quality patient care, and provide a safer healthcare environment.