Conference Proceedings

15th Toulon-Verona Conference "Excellence in Services"

College of Management Academic Studies, Rishon
Lezion, Israel, 3-4 September 2014
pp. 61-69 - ISBN: 9788890432729

Lean in practice: Lessons for Higher Education Institutes

Michele Cano
michele.cano@uws.ac.uk
Athanassios Kourouklis
thanos.kourouklis@uws.ac.uk
Siobhan Drummond
siobhan.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 in
implementation 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 sector
organisations including healthcare, government offices and higher education. The results
show that within service sector organisations, lean implementation is still in the early stages
of 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 Words
Lean initiative implementation, continuous improvement, Higher Education (HE), National
Health Service (NHS).

Lean manufacturing and Lean Implementation

Lean 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.

Lean Principles
Lean 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 service
companies (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 machine centred as in manufacturing, but is people centred.
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:
Philosophy long term thinking,
Process eliminate waste,
People and Partnerships challenge and respect,
Problem solving, - continuous improvement and learning,
Liker (2004) recognises that companies get caught up in the process stage and dont go
beyond eliminating waste, although you would expect more focus on people and partnerships
as services are more people centred.
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

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 organisations
structure, 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 Methodology

The 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 lean
implementation.
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 Health
Service 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 emerging
themes. 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 that
aims to facilitate implantation of lean principles in HE.
The preliminary findings from the interviews are presented in the following section.

Preliminary Findings
Interviews 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

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 the
eight 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 implementation
process. 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.
Drivers
When asked why organisations engage in lean implementation initiatives, all the participants
recognised the need for continuous improvement, but interestingly the main reason was
perceived 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 HE
and the NHS made this more difficult to achieve. Bureaucracy was also recognised as an
inhibitor to implementation by one of the experts.
Approaches and Tools
Interviewees 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 adopted
across the different organisations. All started with consultants carrying out lean training on a
select 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 process
or 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.

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 necessarily
the 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 learned
When 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 an
indication that top management commitment was not strong.
It was also recognised by all interviewees that a change in attitude towards continuous
improvement 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 of
the 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 losers and if possible, these should be
identified at the start.
Similarly, the practitioners from HE gave an example where lack of management support was
to 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 lean
programme. Two of the interviewees (one expert and one practitioner (government

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 most
important 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 wins and 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 organisation
perceive 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 before
starting. 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 to
identify 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 in
his 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 argue
that this process redesign is a necessary stage that the organisations need to go through in
order 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 Education
Based 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

A
L
U
E

Appraise projects in terms of the impact on organisations objectives and

performance measures.
Apply Lean principles to projects.
Utilise appropriate tools and improvement techniques.
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 the
results 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 wins
should 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. Although
the 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 of
perfection.
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.

Conclusions
From 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 attention
to ensure success of initiatives.

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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