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Lean in practice: Lessons for Higher Education Institutes

Michele Cano

michele.cano@uws.ac.uk

Athanassios Kourouklis

thanos.kourouklis@uws.ac.ukSiobhan Drummondsiobhan.drummond@uws.ac.uk

University of the West of Scotland

High Street

Paisley

PA1 2BE

Abstract

This paper presents and discusses the opinions of twelve experts and practitioners involved inimplementation of lean initiatives. Opinions were ascertained through semi structured

interviews with a number of experts including academics and consultants and with those

involved with the implementation of lean initiatives and programmes within public sectororganisations including healthcare, government offices and higher education. The results

show that within service sector organisations, lean implementation is still in the early stagesof maturity. In higher education what is questionable is to what extent implementation of

these programmes falls under the premises of lean principles. What is argued in this paper is

that what is implemented is actually a limited version of process re-engineering.

Additionally this paper presents a framework which can be used to facilitate implementation

of continuous improvement and lean principles within the higher education sector.

Key WordsLean initiative implementation, continuous improvement, Higher Education (HE), National

Health Service (NHS).

Lean manufacturing and Lean ImplementationLean manufacturing has been a popular approach to continuous improvement since the

Toyota Production System yielded such impressive results (Ohno,1988) (Naslund, 2008).

This first production improvement approach, since Fords development of mass production,

led organisations to examine their process and to adopt the lean manufacturing approach

(Womack et al, 2007).

Lean manufacturing is an approach which encourages flow through the elimination of waste.

According to Ohno (1988), (Breyfogle, 1999), (Askin Goldberg, 2002), (Liker, 2004),

(Santos, Wysk, Torres, 2006) there are seven types of waste in the system. These can be

summarised as overproduction, excess inventory, unnecessary transportation, defects,

overprocessing, motion and waiting. Liker (2004) also includes unused employee creativity

as an eighth type of waste in the system.By following the lean manufacturing principles these wastes can be reduced and eliminated

realising greater efficiencies and a reduction in costs.

Conference Proceedings

15thToulon-Verona Conference "Excellence in Services"

College of Management Academic Studies, Rishon

Lezion, Israel, 3-4 September 2014

pp. 61-69 - ISBN: 9788890432729

mailto:michele.cano@uws.ac.ukmailto:michele.cano@uws.ac.ukmailto:michele.cano@uws.ac.uk

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Lean PrinciplesLean manufacturing evolved upon a number of principles that look at the inter-relationships

of customer value, management of the value streams, efficient demand driven production

flows and the quest for continuous improvement. (Ayunaba et al, 2010).

According to Womack and Jones (1996) the five main principles to lean manufacturing

require to: specify value and identify all the value added activities in processes,

identify the value streams by showing the chronological order of activities that add

value,

create continuous product flows by removing non value added activities,

organise a customer driven pull system similarly to JIT and,

pursue perfection, driven by a continuous improvement culture.

Lean in Service Sector Organisations.Although lean principles were developed for production systems, they are no longer restricted

to manufacturing (Ball and Regnir 2007) and are now being successfully applied to servicecompanies (Sarkar 2008) (Waters, 2009). Service companies that implement lean principles,

can gain control of key processes (Allway and Corbett, 2002).

In adapting lean principles, to reflect on the requirements of the service sector, Hines et al

(2004) concluded upon the following four points:

Identification of customer value

Management of the value stream

Development of process flow, based on pull techniques

Continuous pursuit of perfection

Liker (2004) recognises that implementation of lean principles is different in services as the

nature of the work is not machinecentred as in manufacturing, but is peoplecentred.

However the procedure remains the same. The organisations have to find their seven types of

waste and act on their elimination (Liker, Hoseus; 2008). Liker (2004) also advises that

organisations have to be patient and keep trying to improve the level of kaizen through

repeated experiments by try something, reflecting and learning. In his 4P approach:

Philosophylong term thinking,

Processeliminate waste,

People and Partnershipschallenge and respect,

Problem solving, - continuous improvement and learning,

Liker (2004) recognises that companies get caught up in the process stage and dont gobeyond eliminating waste, although you would expect more focus on people and partnerships

as services are more peoplecentred.

Other examples from lean principles implementation in services come from the health

service. Jones and Mitchell (2006) have also identified four main lean principles for

implementation in health services (NHS), these being patient perspective, pull, flow and

value streaming.

Similarly, Spear (2005) states that in order to maximize value and eliminate waste, leaders in

health care, as in other organisations, must evaluate processes by accurately specifying the

value desired by the user. This involves identification of every step in the processes i.e. the

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value stream, elimination of non-value-added steps, and value generation, from the beginning

to the end of the patient journey that are based on a patient driven pull system.

Fillingham (2007) describes how a lean system was implemented and reviewed within the

Bolton Hospitals NHS Trust and emphasizes that lean principles should not be hurriedly

implemented as there is need to have a thorough understanding of the organisationsstructure, culture, operations and the issues to be addressed, highlighting the need for support

from top management.

In Scotland, the NHS has been the public sector body which is further down the

implementation route than the other sectors. Uptake of lean principles and implementation

within services and in particular within other public sector organisations has also been

encouraged by the Scottish Executive. However there is a lack of understanding of how this

can be extended to other service organisations for example in the HE sector. This paper

presents the results of research carried out to determine the extent of implementation of lean

initiatives within the public sector and to explore experiences from implementation in service

organisations as the means of developing a framework for the HE sector.

Research Design and MethodologyThe work presented here is part of a wider project that focuses on implementation of lean

principles in higher education (HE). Within that project a particular work package was to

conduct in-depth semi-structured interviews with experts and practitioners in leanimplementation.

Interviews were carried out with two consultants and two academic experts in lean

implementation. Along with the experts, practitioners (lean champions) from the public

sector were also interviewed. Two of the lean champions were from the National HealthService NHS, two were from government departments. Additionally in order to gain

experience from the Higher Education sector, two members of senior management and two

members of the implementation team were also interviewed.

The interviews were transcribed and initial content analysis identified the main emergingthemes. These were compared with the main themes arising from literature and existing

knowledge. The synthesis of these ideas is presented as work in progress in a framework thataims to facilitate implantation of lean principles in HE.

The preliminary findings from the interviews are presented in the following section.

Preliminary FindingsInterviews were focussed on a number of issues related to implementation of lean principles:

Understanding,

Drivers,

Environment

Approaches and tools

Benefits, limitations and lessons learned

Understanding

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Initially, the interviewees were asked to define what lean meant to them. As expected, all

participants talked about the elimination or reduction of waste and improvement in the

organisations processes. All participants could relate and give examples of types of waste.

The four expert interviewees also discussed focusing on the customer and in particular

assessing and improving value to the customer and understanding of the value stream. Of theeight practitioners interviewed, only one, from the NHS, talked about value to the customer.

Consistent with literature, these five interviewees stressed the importance of understanding

what value means to the customer and focussing on this throughout the lean implementationprocess. Only two of the experts made reference to the internal customer.

Interestingly the remaining seven practitioners failed to demonstrate an understanding of

value despite further probing. Perhaps value to the customer was not stressed in their training

and also that they saw their role as improving processes. This is an indication of a possible

training failure, as a clear understanding of lean principles was not conveyed properly. Of the

further principles of lean, flow was discussed by all experts but by only two of the eight

practitioners (one NHS and one government), thus reinforcing the training failure.

DriversWhen asked why organisations engage in lean implementation initiatives, all the participants

recognised the need for continuous improvement, but interestingly the main reason wasperceived as a cost cutting exercise within the public sector. This coincides with recent

government cuts which have forced the public sector, NHS and HE to look for ways in which

they could make savings across their organisations.

Environment

All the experts felt that although Higher Education had unique characteristics and sometimes

ill defined processes, lean could and should be applied throughout the institutions. All

practitioners also felt that lean principles were only suitable or most successful when applied

to processes that are clearly defined. Two of the practitioners also recognised that it should be

suitable to all processes but that some of the characteristics such as bureaucracy within HEand the NHS made this more difficult to achieve. Bureaucracy was also recognised as an

inhibitor to implementation by one of the experts.

Approaches and ToolsInterviewees were asked about what they found to be the most effective approach to

implementing lean initiatives. All the practitioners gave an overview of how they had

implemented the initiative and interestingly the same approach seems to have been adoptedacross the different organisations. All started with consultants carrying out lean training on aselect group of employees brought together to form a team. After training took place, the

teams were sent out to identify suitable processes for improvements. Once a suitable processor problem was identified then process mapping was used to show what was happening.

Solutions or improvements were determined using brainstorming and in some cases cause

and effect analysis. Rapid improvement events were then held to implement the

improvement. The results of these events were variable. Some success was achieved but a

lot of what had been achieved was met with resistance and some improvements were not

sustained. In other cases improvements that were seen in one area had been at the expense of

another area. This is an indication that all lean projects must be fully appraised prior to

implementation.

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Furthermore, all participants felt that in comparison to other approaches such as Six Sigma,

the lean approach was appropriate for Higher education. The main reason given for this was

that six sigma and other more statistical approaches were more difficult to understand and

apply.

All interviewees stated the most useful tool was process mapping. However, one practitioner

stated that although it is the most popular tool she wasnt convinced that it was necessarilythe most useful one. This interviewee felt that value stream mapping and spaghetti diagrams

could be used more effectively. Other tools adopted less frequently were cause and effect

analysis and in one case, Jidoka.

Benefits and limitations and lessons learnedWhen asked about the benefits of lean, all interviewees without exception stated that it gave

them the opportunity to stand back and look at the processes. Some of the comments included

that it was enlightening for employees to see the processes mapped out and to realise the

waste in a lot of their activities. This acted as a motivator and helped to overcome some of

the resistance to change. However, the biggest resistance in all cases seemed to come from

departmental managers (all sectors) and resulted in failure of many projects. This is anindication that top management commitment was not strong.

It was also recognised by all interviewees that a change in attitude towards continuousimprovement is required. Additionally experts stated that a culture change, within public

sector type organisations, is fundamental.

All the practitioners felt that the team approach to implementing lean was good but it meant

that the lean initiatives werent necessarily owned by the employees. The NHS interviewees

recognised a need for more empowerment of employees stating that they would like to see

them take ownership of problems and come up with solutions rather than referring problems

to the lean team.

The main reason for failing of any lean initiative was given as a lack of commitment by

management and employees. The experts strongly insisted that top management commitment

was the most important factor in implementing lean. This was also supported by the views ofthe practitioners. An example was given where, in the NHS, as a result of a lean initiative a

theatre ward was redesigned, to improve patient flow and increase and through put. The

overall result for the ward was a great success and staff and patient satisfaction was

increased. However, the knock of effect was that the hospital lost two beds from overall

capacity. This instigated much resistance from other departments and the lean project

required a lot of renegotiation and support from top management. The practitioner also stated

that a lot of the projects resulted in winners and losersand if possible, these should beidentified at the start.

Similarly, the practitioners from HE gave an example where lack of management support wasto be detrimental to the lean initiative. In one particular case, departments within HE had

been asked to meet targets of 5% cuts. However, any targets that were met through

implementation of lean projects were not accepted. Savings made through the lean projects

were to be assigned to the lean initiative and not to the overall departmental effort as they

were cost differently. This resulted in resistance by departmental managers to support the

lean projects.

According to Feld, (2001), employee motivation is one of the enablers of a successful leanprogramme. Two of the interviewees (one expert and one practitioner (government

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department) recognised that lean could actually caused dissatisfaction in employees. The

practitioner gave an example where the new lean processes worked very well when dealing

with normal case loads, however a back log of cases had existed and there was no capacity

for clearing the back logs. This put added pressure on the staff and caused dissatisfaction and

can be attributed to lack of management commitment in terms of resourcing rather than the

lean implementation project.

When asked what advice the interviewees would give to an HE organisation implementing

lean principles, they all stated that management commitment was without doubt the mostimportant aspect. They also stated that it provides an opportunity to review processes and

given the commitment make considerable improvements. Furthermore all the interviewees

recognised the need for quick winsand its effect on motivation. This is supported by Kotter

(1999) who includes planning for quick wins in his eight steps to transforming the

organisation.

Therefore lean initiatives must be supported by top management especially when difficult

decisions have to be made and individuals or groups within a department or organisationperceive themselves to be disadvantaged by the changes. However, the findings indicate that

few lean projects are assessed for impact on organisation objectives other than cost beforestarting. Some of the examples of typical projects given by the practitioners had very little

impact even on cost. A project management approach to evaluate the risk of a project and toidentify the main measurements and objectives would allow for management commitment

and ensure that lean projects with high impact were given proper support. Resistance to the

initiative could also be assessed and management of the resistance could be planned for.

The practitioners recognised that many the projects undertaken were not really

implementation of lean principles but rather process improvements. There was an

understanding by all the interviewees that while different public sector organisations were at

different stages in lean implementation programmes, overall the sector was a long way from

achieving successful results. The four interviewees from the HE sector considered that their

lean implementation programmes had failed and one interviewee was about to resurrect it inhis organisation as there was still a need for improvement. It was recognised that any gains

that had been made by the previous attempt to implement lean had been lost. To avoid the

effect of bad publicity of failed initiatives two of the expert interviewees suggested that lean

initiative could be reinvented under the umbrella of another initiative.

Not one practitioner gave an example where they had gone beyond process improvements

and very little beyond a process redesign appears to have been achieved. The authors arguethat this process redesign is a necessary stage that the organisations need to go through inorder to establish internal process improvements and nurture a culture of continuous

improvement but this should be approached in a structured way.

A Framework for Implementing Lean in Higher EducationBased on these preliminary results and understanding of literature (Liker, 2004), (Hines et al,

2004), (Jones and Mitchell 2006), a preliminary framework is proposed that encapsulates the

requirements for improvement initiatives based on lean principles in service organisations

such as HE institutions.

V - View processes and identify and scope potential projects

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A - Appraise projects in terms of the impact on organisations objectives and

performance measures.

L - Apply Lean principles to projects.

U - Utilise appropriate tools and improvement techniques.

E - Evaluate and consolidate improvements and consider PDCA.

At the V stage all projects can be considered and scoped and a programme for improvement

be drawn up. It is vital at this stage to have true understanding of the potential benefits of the

projects and an understanding of performance measurements that will be used to assess theresults and various stages of the project.

During the A stage, a programme for improvements can be drawn up based on sound project

management techniques and decisions based on factual evidence. Impact in terms of quality,

costs and time can be considered and any potential problems identified with the

implementation can be planned for. Resistance to the changes can also be planned for and

strategies for managing the resistance can be decided upon. At this stage it is vitally

important to secure commitment from managers prior to implementation. Quick winsshould also be planned for at this stage in order to sustain motivation.

The third and fourth stages ensure that lean principles are applied to the processes and

appropriate tools are used in addressing problems and coming up with solutions. Althoughthe lean approach has its own tool suite all tools should be considered and deemed

appropriate by the team. Previous research (Cano and Kobi, 2011) indicated that

manufacturing companies, who were mature in terms of implementing continuous

improvement, did not necessarily differentiate between a lean tool or other tools and used

whichever tools were appropriate for the project. To encourage teams to use more than just

process mapping, team members should be educated in all the appropriate tools and be

confident in their use.

The final stage is there to ensure that benefits are sustained and improvements are

institutionalised without prohibiting continuous improvements leading to the pursuit ofperfection.

The VALUE framework should be considered as an iterative process. Training of team

members is fundamental and using good project management techniques can help to plan,

control and evaluate progress.

ConclusionsFrom the evidence collated from the practitioners from three public sector organisations, it is

clear implementation of lean initiatives is very much in its infancy. It can be argued that little

more than process redesign has been achieved and in some cases not even sustained. There

also appears to be an ad hoc approach to the implementing of lean, with projects being

chosen without assessment of impact. HE can learn from the successes and failures in the

public sector organisations, and adopt approaches that ensure successful implementation of

lean practices.

The preliminary proposed framework can provide guidelines on issues that require attentionto ensure success of initiatives.

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It should be noted that presented results and the proposed framework are the initial findings

of a wider research project and further work will be undertaken to validate the framework and

its utility in the HE sector.

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