A review and perspective on Lean in higher education

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the accumulated body of research on Lean in higher education, draw conclusions to help guide successful Lean implementations and propose future research directions to establish a rich base of knowledge that informs both practice and research.

Design/methodology/approach
This literature review examines the academic literature regarding the use of Lean in higher education across 64 publications. EBSCO definitions were used to assess and present the synthesized results, which are detailed at the department/unit level and at the organizational level.

Findings
Overall, Lean appears to have significant and measurable value when used to improve academic and administrative operations in higher education. Such improvements are effective at the department/unit level or throughout the entire institution. However, implementing Lean within an institution is a serious undertaking that is most impactful if it involves long-term, strategic planning.

Research limitations/implications
The groundwork has been established for the development of conceptual frameworks to further guide Lean initiatives in higher education. Such frameworks, together with further integration of organizational development and change management literature will define best practices when implementing Lean locally and throughout the institution.

Originality/value
At the time of this writing, there has been no systematic review or integration of the published literature about Lean in higher education. This review provides a highly useful starting point for researchers interested in further developing theory about quality in academic institutions.

Full text

A review and perspective on
Lean in higher education
William K. Balzer
Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, USA
David E. Francis
Foxtrot Consulting and Research Inc., Saskatchewan, Canada, and
Timothy C. Krehbiel and Nicholas Shea
Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the accumulated body of research on Lean in
higher education, draw conclusions to help guide successful Lean implementations and propose future
research directions to establish a rich base of knowledge that informs both practice and research.
Design/methodology/approach – This literature review examines the academic literature
regarding the use of Lean in higher education across 64 publications. EBSCO denitions were used to
assess and present the synthesized results, which are detailed at the department/unit level and at the
organizational level.
Findings – Overall, Lean appears to have signicant and measurable value when used to improve
academic and administrative operations in higher education. Such improvements are effective at the
department/unit level or throughout the entire institution. However, implementing Lean within an
institution is a serious undertaking that is most impactful if it involves long-term, strategic planning.
Research limitations/implications – The groundwork has been established for the development
of conceptual frameworks to further guide Lean initiatives in higher education. Such frameworks,
together with further integration of organizational development and change management literature will
dene best practices when implementing Lean locally and throughout the institution.
Originality/value – At the time of this writing, there has been no systematic review or integration of
the published literature about Lean in higher education. This review provides a highly useful starting
point for researchers interested in further developing theory about quality in academic institutions.
Keywords Continuous improvement, Leadership, Quality, Efciency, Lean, Lean higher education
Paper type Literature review
Introduction
Lean is a set of principles and practices developed over several decades by the Toyota Motor
Company to establish operational excellence as a strategic cornerstone. The “Toyota Way”
(Liker, 2004), emphasized continuous improvement and respect for employees as key to
strategic business philosophy to enhance product quality. These two leadership tenets were
consistently applied to eliminate waste and improve the ow of manufacturing processes
(Byrne, 2013;Womack and Jones, 1996,2005). Recognizing the benets of product quality,
The authors would like to thank Susan Hurst, Business Librarian at Miami University, for her
expert advice and help in tracking down numerous manuscripts during the preparation of this
review.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0968-4883.htm
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Received 16 March 2015
Revised 4 June 2015
17 February 2016
4 May 2016
Accepted 12 May 2016
Quality Assurance in Education
Vol. 24 No. 4, 2016
pp. 442-462
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0968-4883
DOI 10.1108/QAE-03-2015-0011

employee engagement, customer satisfaction and company prots, Toyota extended Lean
thinking to all aspects of its business, including product development, supply chain logistics,
nance and customer service (Womack et al., 1990).
Over the past decades, Lean principles and practices have been incorporated
worldwide in public and private sector organizations. Lean Higher Education (LHE)
(Balzer, 2010) has enabled post-secondary institutions to seek similar improvements in
response to the demands of the higher education marketplace: exceeding the
expectations of students, faculty and other constituents; reducing expenses in an age of
rising costs and declining nancial resources; meeting demands for public
accountability in terms of efciency and effectiveness; and, most importantly,
strategically leveraging all available institutional resources to fulll the educational,
scholarship and outreach missions of higher education (Balzer, 2010;Behm et al., 2010;
Holm and Waterbury, 2010;Waterbury and Holm, 2011).
Numerous case studies describe LHE implementations across the continuum from
local through institution-wide. Studies typically present small (5-8 persons) project
teams participating in multi-day workshops to apply steps to improve underperforming
or unsatisfying processes. Common areas of improvement are student admissions,
hiring faculty, purchasing supplies, offering a new major, remodeling a research lab,
adding or dropping a course, approving a grant submission, advising students or
communicating with donors.
Project teams achieved process improvements through a general ve-step process:
• identifying constituents who benet from the process and what they value;
• applying Lean tools and techniques to analyze the current process to surface
wasted steps, efforts and inefcient ow among the process steps;
• redesigning the process using Lean techniques that eliminate waste, improve ow
and better meet constituents’ needs;
• implementing and regularly evaluating the updated processes using metrics that
reect what constituents expect from the process; and
• continually improving the process with the ultimate goal of achieving perfection
in the eyes of all constituents.
Over the past 15 years, LHE has demonstrated its potential for realizing improvements
in the delivery of higher education and its supporting services. Examples of
improvement noted in the literature include:
• the creation of a “walk in” service at a student counseling center that reduced
student wait time from an average of 21 to 0 days without adding any new staff;
• reducing the reply time for a request for information from prospective students
from two to three weeks to 1 h;
• reducing backlogged repairs of campus facilities from an average of 24 work days
to an average of less than 3 work days, with 80 per cent of repairs completed the
same day they were requested;
• reducing the number of steps in an administrative staff hiring process by more
than half, resulting in a reduced hiring time from 22 to 8 weeks; and
• accumulating over $27.2m in nancial improvements at a US public university
over a four-year period (Balzer, 2010;Balzer et al., 2015;Krehbiel et al., 2015).
443
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Worldwide, colleges and universities have achieved successes from LHE initiatives,
with many institutions documenting issues related to LHE conceptualizations and
implementations in academic journals, technical reports, trade publications and
conference presentations. Although many institutions have reported progress related to
improvement, some have concomitantly described challenges to improvement, such as
incorrect understandings of LHE tools and methodologies, aspects of organizational
culture (e.g. resistance to change) and a lack of leadership support (Emiliani, 2015b,
2015c;Radnor and Bucci, 2011;Wiegel and Brouwer-Hadzialic, 2015).
At the time of this writing, there has been no systematic review or integration of the
published LHE literature. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the accumulated
body of research on LHE, draw conclusions on its impact and limitations to help
successfully implement LHE and offer recommendations to challenge and guide the
development of future LHE research.
Early beginnings
In the 1990s, global interest in total quality management (TQM) led many colleges and
universities to apply quality principles within their institutions. These principles
foreshadowed Lean, in particular, the principle of continuous improvement (i.e. Kaizen).
Zimmerman claimed that it is:
[…] important to recognize that competition will demand that higher education institutions
become exible, at, and fast organizations. Consideration should be given to adopting the
philosophy of Kaizen, continuous improvement of products, processes, and people
(Zimmerman, 1991, p. 10).
Gains from Kaizen included maintaining a balanced nancial performance, achieving
planned growth, improving research performance, promoting a shared sense of purpose,
improving teaching/learning performance, recruiting/retaining outstanding staff and
maximizing benets from information technology infrastructure (Clayton, 1995).
The late 1990s brought skepticism toward TQM, although the growing interest in Kaizen
led to an expanded curiosity about Lean. The rst direct reference to the use of Lean in higher
education is found in Dahlgaard and Østergaard (2000), which extended the TQM approach
presented by the lead author in Dahlgaard and Madsen (1999) by adding Lean and focusing
on relationships between quality and cost. The authors proposed that Lean thinking can
benet higher education but warned that the manufacturing sector differs signicantly from
education, a frequent observation over the last 15 years.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Six Sigma became popular, rst in industry and then in
services, healthcare and education. More recently, Six Sigma and Lean have been
integrated into quality and productivity initiatives under the umbrella term of Lean Six
Sigma (Snee, 2010). Currently, LHE initiatives reect the evolution of the eld, and
incorporate aspects of TQM and Six Sigma into the foundational elements of Lean
principles and practices, and its systematic application of the pursuit for continuous
improvement and respect for employees. As the rst LHE publication in 2000
(Dahlgaard and Østergaard, 2000), research in this area has continued to mature. The
early literature on LHE implementations was typically limited to case studies and
technical reports. Recently, more publications about LHE appear in academic journals,
with expanded conceptualization of LHE and rigor in its application. A comprehensive
review of LHE at this formative point in the development of the eld provides both a
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reection on current practice and suggestions for further study, advancing the
understanding of the promise and limitations of LHE institutional improvement efforts.
Research methodology
Literature search process
Five databases were searched for LHE publications for the years 2000-2015: Business
Source Complete, Professional Development Collection; Education Full Text (H.W.
Wilson), Education Research Complete and Education Resource Information Center.
Articles were removed about teaching Lean as a subject as opposed to using Lean to
improve operations, support services or core academic processes. Examples using Lean
Six Sigma, where Lean was determined to be a signicant component of the
methodology applied, are included. Publications examining traditional Six Sigma
methods without integrating Lean are not included in our literature review. Similarly,
not included are publications focusing on TQM applications in the absence of Lean.
EBSCO denitions were used to select all articles published in academic journals,
trade publications, magazines/periodicals or books. The reference list from each
manuscript was evaluated to look for more references that met the denition of LHE.
Conference proceedings, technical reports and white papers were also reviewed to
examine their potentially signicant ndings. Although no conference proceedings or
white papers are included in this review, their reference lists were examined for any
additional relevant articles. The rationale for excluding conference and white papers
was that relevant ndings from conferences and reports can be re-published in the
academic literature and the preference to focus on material more likely to be vetted by a
rigorous peer or editorial review process. After reviewing numerous technical reports, a
select number of technical reports deemed most informative were included.
In total, 64 publications comprise our literature review. Using the EBSCO denitions,
41 publications were in peer-reviewed academic journals, 7 publications appeared in
magazines/periodicals and ve were published in trade publications. Four books, one
book chapter and six technical reports were included.
Departmental and institutional views of Lean Higher Education
The review is organized into two categories representing the organizational level of LHE
interventions. First, department-level publications describe experiences at the individual
or organizational unit level. Examples include faculty members who design a course
using Lean thinking and methodologies or a university payroll department conducting
a series of Lean projects to improve operations. Institution-wide publications describe
organizational experiences (for faculty, staff, administrators and students) across the
entire higher education institution or are conceptual papers whose main contributions
offer a high-level, conceptual perspective of how LHE can and cannot be effective and
suggest future directions not previously expressed in the literature. These publications
also may introduce new frameworks related to LHE or related elds of inquiry, such as
organizational design, cultural considerations or organizational learning.
Department-level publications
Publications examining a case study analysis of an individual project or an initiative
within an organizational unit are summarized in Table I.
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Lean in higher
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Table I.
LHE 2000-2015:
department-level
publications
Author(s) Year EBSCO type Contribution type Brief publication summary
Alagaraja 2010 Academic journal Conceptual Suggested that Lean can be used for enhancing course development and
the overall student experience
Alexander and Williams 2005 Academic journal Case Described the use of Boeing’s accelerated improvement workshops (AIWs)
to improve operational ow in an academic library
Bade and Haas 2015 Trade publication Case Reported on university capital and building improvement projects that
used Lean methods
Bargerstock and Richards 2015 Academic journal Case Presented a case study of an application of DMAIC to university academic
assessment processes
Behm et al. 2010 Report Case Described situated examples of improvements in a business school and risk
factors to consider when planning or implementing LHE
Betzinger and Wood 2013 Trade publication Case Described a Lean project in university dining services as a pilot project for
further institutional change initiatives
Buster-Williams 2009 Trade publication Case Applied Lean methods to reduce waste in university student recruitment
Dey 2007 Academic journal Case Described improvements to a graduate business school program Focus was
on improvements to course content and means of delivery
Doman 2011 Academic journal Case Described how undergraduate business students used Lean to improve a
grade-entry process at their institution
El-Sayed et al. 2011 Academic journal Case Presented Lean from the perspective of the Toyota model to dene value
for the multiple stakeholders of an institution
Emiliani 2004a Academic journal Case Described use of Lean methodology to improve a university course
Emiliani 2005b Academic journal Case Described improvement effort to enhance quality of ten graduate level
management courses
Emiliani 2015a Book Conceptual and Case Described how faculty members could be the drivers of LHE organizational
changes
Emiliani 2015c Academic journal Conceptual Described waste in higher education and discussed the relationship
between faculty and administrators regarding improvement efforts
Finn and Geraci 2012 Report Case Reported on the use of Lean in the nancial departments of four North
American universities
Fisher et al. 2011 Academic journal Case Described how value stream mapping aided improvements for the
academic advising function of a university
(continued)
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Table I.
Author(s) Year EBSCO type Contribution type Brief publication summary
Isa and Usman 2015 Academic journal Case Described use of Lean Six Sigma and DMAIC to improve university facility
management
Kress 2008 Academic journal Case Described a project to improve transactional library services (i.e. shelving)
using a variety of Lean tools
Lawn 2011 Magazine/Periodical Case Presented a capability maturity model used to improve the efciency of
university dining services
Lorenzetti 2014 Magazine/Periodical Case Described training efforts to enhance a distance-learning program by
embedding LHE across work functions
MacIntyre et al. 2009 Trade publication Case Described a Kaizen blitz approach for improving facilities management
and cutting greenhouse gases
Murphy 2009 Academic journal Case Described transactional efciency enhancements to a virtual library project
Pavlovic´ et al. 2014 Academic journal Case Noted how various Lean tools were used to enhance university operations
and academic services (i.e. managing test scores)
Pedersen et al. 2015 Academic journal Case Advocated a train-the-trainer approach to building capacity in LHE.
Provided examples of LHE improvements across different departments
Sandmann et al. 2006 Academic journal Case Summarized benets of Kaizen blitz approach to improvements in a
continuing education department
Tatikonda 2007 Academic journal Conceptual Offered hypothetical examples of applying Lean and non-Lean tools to a
variety of academic operations
Tuai 2006 Academic journal Case Described library improvements to electronic reserves articulated via
Womack and Jones’ ve tenets of Lean
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education

These applications represent a bottom-up approach where individuals or pockets of
individuals have applied LHE thinking and methodologies without broad institutional
support.
Teaching, curriculum and assessment. LHE can be used to design and deliver
courses, plan academic programs, improve grading systems and improve assessment
practices for learning. Emiliani (2015a,2015c) claimed that through small process
changes, consistent with Lean principles and practices, faculty members could reduce
teaching errors, ensure steady student workload and ow and standardize curricular
resources. Lean tools, such as value stream mapping, cause-and-effect diagrams and
Pareto charts, have been shown to improve the development of teaching materials
(Alagaraja, 2010;Pavlovic´ et al., 2014;Tatikonda, 2007). While reporting the
advantages of waste reduction, ensuring ow and preventing content errors through the
use of Lean methods and tools, Alagaraja (2010) warned that a potential limitation is
that the approach could lead to unsustainable increased workloads on faculty.
Updates to curriculum are performed either systematically or through years of singular
updates performed by faculty members. Emiliani (2004a,2005b,2006,2015a,2015c) has
been critical of such processes, as he believes that rm metrics should track how the
syllabus, required reading, assignments and examinations should develop and improve. He
described the need to incorporate student feedback and systematically ensure student access
to the appropriate materials necessary for enhanced recall of course concepts. Dey (2007)
claimed that updating and improving an MBA curriculum through the application of Lean
tools and thinking led to increased value for the employers of their graduating students, and
Tatikonda (2007) hypothesized that Lean could result in signicant improvements to
accountancy courses and the overall curriculum.
Regarding the assessment of learning, Bargerstock and Richards (2015) described
LHE, Lean Six Sigma and the dene-measure-analyze-improve-control (DMAIC)
improvements when launching an institutional improvement training initiative.
El-Sayed et al. described how LHE can improve assessment processes where
“objectives, outcomes, and performance criteria for all of the courses in the program
should ow from the program-level specications and should be aligned with it”
(El-Sayed et al., 2011, p. 71).
Administrative and student-support processes. Many publications exist that describe
LHE improvements to administrative and student support departments. Institutional
accounting and nancial ofces are common application areas because of the
transactional nature of processes (Behm et al., 2010;Finn and Geraci, 2012). LHE
advances were also noted for food services (Betzinger and Wood, 2013;Lawn, 2011),
conference planning and implementation processes (Sandmann et al., 2006) and physical
facilities design and maintenance operations (Bade and Haas, 2015;Isa and Usmen,
2015;MacIntyre et al., 2009). Although most reported improvements are in terms of
fewer errors, increased speed or higher customer satisfaction, Behm et al. (2010)
described pitfalls individuals or departments need to avoid:
• underestimating the effort required;
• creating undened ownership;
• creating undened metrics;
• implementing poor project selection criteria; and
• using Lean to justify eliminating positions.
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Libraries have used LHE to improve book stack management, sales of used books,
virtual referencing and inter-library loan services (Alexander and Williams, 2005;Kress,
2008;Murphy, 2009;Tuai, 2006). LHE improvements to student support services include
advising (Fisher et al., 2011) and admissions (Buster-Williams, 2009). Distance
education has benetted from LHE in terms of student recruitment, student orientation
and event management, leading to nancial savings and added overall qualitative value
(Lorenzetti, 2014;Pedersen et al., 2015).
In an interesting twist of pedagogy, students themselves have used LHE to improve
educational experiences. At one institution, an effort led by students using Lean tools
and thinking improved their own grade entry system. The project was completed in
eight weeks and later adopted by university administrators responsible for
grade-change issues and other electronic processes (Doman, 2011).
Institution-level publications
Publications where the primary focus was an analysis of institution-wide LHE
applications or providing related conceptual frameworks and recommendations are
summarized in Table II:
Several of the publications described existing initiatives and experiences that could
be generalized to other institutions. In general, these publications demonstrated
examples of top-level support for LHE implementations across a wide spectrum of
departments and divisions and a need to accommodate cultural changes during such
implementations.
Executive leadership. A common theme in the literature is the importance of sustained
top-management support and commitment when introducing Lean initiatives (Comm
and Mathaisel, 2005a;Antony et al., 2012;Hines and Lethbridge, 2008;Krehbiel et al.,
2015;Paris, 2007;Radnor and Bucci, 2011). The provision of training was viewed as
crucial (Comm and Mathaisel, 2005b;Krehbiel et al., 2015;Radnor and Bucci, 2011;
Svensson et al., 2015), and Cristina and Felicia (2012) emphasized the importance of
using a central ofce to direct LHE initiatives. Notably, strategy and Lean thinking
serve as catalysts for each other and help drive longer-term, institution-wide
improvements (Antony et al., 2012;Emiliani, 2005a).
The executive layer within higher education has been criticized in some cases for
ignoring the Lean movement altogether or for poorly implementing and supporting
LHE initiatives. Emiliani (2004b,2015b) has advocated for Lean leadership to come from
individual faculty members, as they directly control the teaching and learning
experience and can apply LHE more easily than administrators in many cases.
Institutional readiness. Developing organizational readiness, including linking
improvement to the institution’s strategy, establishing a customer focus and selecting
the right people, is important when implementing LHE (Antony et al., 2012;Antony,
2014). Radnor and Bucci (2011, p. 9) reported that leaders working on LHE
improvements in UK business schools believed the three most important enablers were:
[…] creating an understanding of the need to change, revising processes and practices which
had been untouched for years, and engaging staff to enable them to challenge and question
their working practices.
Sinha and Mishra (2013) advised that categorizing inefciencies is the rst step for
planning improvements, and that LHE should account for how people work, how people
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Lean in higher
education

Table II.
LHE 2000-2015:
institution-level
publications
Author(s) Year EBSCO type Contribution type Brief publication summary
Antony 2014 Academic journal Conceptual Suggested readiness factors for higher education institutions
considering the use of Lean or Six Sigma
Antony 2015 Academic journal Conceptual Claimed that academic counselling/support areas are good starting
points for improvement. LHE presents organizational, technical
and individual challenges
Antony et al. 2012 Academic journal Conceptual Studied UK universities; claimed Lean and Six Sigma should be
used together for the most effective results
Baker 2012 Magazine/Periodical Conceptual Provided an overview of UK universities report on efciency and
the work of Radnor and Bucci
Balzer 2010 Book Conceptual and case Presented case studies and conceptual framework for LHE.
Emphasized institutional readiness, including leadership and
institutional culture, to support effective implementation
Balzer et al. 2015 Academic journal Conceptual Built on LHE experiences and literature to propose a systems
approach based on organizational change management literature
to implement and sustain institution-wide LHE
Barton and Yazdani 2013 Academic journal Conceptual Noted success factors of transparency, clear levels of reporting,
clear ownership of improvement projects and linking Lean to
accreditation efforts
Bryman 2007 Report Conceptual and case Summarized key ndings related to leadership styles, approaches
and behaviors associated with effectiveness in higher education
settings
Comm and Mathaisel 2003 Academic journal Conceptual Proposed continuous improvement for sustainability of higher
education via Lean framework based on nine principles
Comm and Mathaisel 2005a Academic journal Empirical Studied administrator perceptions about process improvement at
New England universities, compared with framework in previous
article
Comm and Mathaisel 2005b Academic journal Empirical Examined New England university administrators’ views on
process improvement
(continued)
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Table II.
Author(s) Year EBSCO type Contribution type Brief publication summary
Cristina and Felicia 2012 Academic journal Case Provided three case studies of LHE implementations at different
institutions
Dahlgaard and 兾Ostergaard 2000 Book chapter Conceptual Described integration of TQM and Lean, as well as differences in
implementation between public and private sectors
Douglas et al. 2015 Academic journal Conceptual Translated the eight wastes of Lean to LHE situations
Emiliani 2004b Academic journal Conceptual Described categories of waste within higher education settings.
Advised that management schools tend to teach high-waste
approaches to leadership and should change
Emiliani 2005a Magazine/Periodical Conceptual Described an initiative to enhance the quality of management
graduate education courses and also claimed that LHE can be a
basis for strategic planning
Emiliani 2006 Academic journal Conceptual Focused on how program design could be enhanced with Lean
methods for an MBA program
Emiliani 2015b Book Conceptual Described history of continuous improvement in LHE and further
explored a faculty member’s role in improvement
Fearn 2010 Magazine/Periodical Case Described various LHE implementations in UK universities and
colleges
Flumerfelt and
Banachowski
2011 Academic journal Empirical Presented a qualitative study of higher education administrators to
identify areas of their highest concern when undertaking
institutional improvement initiatives
Francis 2014 Academic journal Conceptual Presented a view where organizational learning was linked to LHE
from a systems perspective
Hines and Lethbridge 2008 Academic journal Case Presented metaphor for LHE, emphasizing the link between Lean
projects and institutional strategy
Holm and Waterbury 2010 Magazine/Periodical Case Described an Educational Lean Improvement Model (ELIM) and
illustrated eight examples of waste that directly impact students
Kang and Maryonge 2014 Academic journal Conceptual Described how improvements affect students, research and staff.
Specic examples were provided that addressed different types of
waste
(continued)
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Table II.
Author(s) Year EBSCO type Contribution type Brief publication summary
Krehbiel et al. 2015 Academic journal Case Described a university-wide, multiyear initiative to implement
LHE. Progress was reported in terms of efciency gains, cost
savings and environmental sustainability
Morgan and Baker 2011 Magazine/Periodical Conceptual Provided an opinion on Universities UK report regarding the use
of outsourcing as a means of achieving efciency
Paris 2007 Report Case Studied how 30 different institutions set up quality improvement
departments and governed Lean projects
Radnor and Bucci 2011 Report Case Provided a case study of four UK university business schools that
implemented Lean
Sinha and Mishra 2013 Academic journal Case Described higher education challenges in India with
recommendations on how to implement Lean based on how people
work, connect and operate
Svensson et al. 2015 Academic journal Case Described staff training and LHE improvement progress in terms
of streamlined processes and quicker service turnarounds
Thirkell and Ashman 2014 Academic journal Empirical Used interviews to assess perceptions about LHE at two UK
universities. Also noted how LHE should integrate with human
resources functions
Thomas et al. 2015 Academic journal Empirical Compared LHE implementations at different institutional types to
assess organizational dynamics and usefulness of tools
Universities UK 2011 Report Case Reported on LHE progress and future possibilities presented by
the efciency and modernization task group of Universities UK
Vyas and Campbell 2015 Magazine/Periodical Conceptual Claimed that higher education industry is nally at the end of a
long cycle of inefciency; drastic changes are required to become
competitive again
Waterbury 2015 Academic journal Empirical Analyzed administrators who attended Lean training workshops
to assess how improvement projects were to be planned and
launched
Waterbury and Holm 2011 Book Conceptual and case Described the history of quality initiatives in LHE, the history of
Lean and the ELIM
Wiegel et al. 2015 Academic journal Conceptual Claimed that Lean methods are not properly adjusted for the
organization-type, resulting in sub-par results
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connect and how processes operate. They concluded that LHE succeeds when connected
to the longer-term plans of an organization, using smaller-scale Lean projects as
precedents for wider initiatives. Balzer (2010) noted that assessing institutional
readiness is a key consideration before embarking on a signicant, institution-wide
effort to introduce LHE.
Organizational learning. Colleges and universities (who are in the business of
learning) would do well to examine organizational learning as a means of promoting
sustained improvement. Flumerfelt and Banachowski (2011) emphasized the
importance of systems-based learning and warned leaders to heed Bryman’s advice that
administrators must avoid:
[…] failing to consult, not respecting existing values, actions that undermine collegiality, not
promoting the interests of those for whom the leader is responsible, being uninvolved in the life of
the department or institution, undermining autonomy and allowing the department/institution to
drift (Bryman, 2007,p.2).
Organizational learning has been proposed as a collateral support for LHE. Francis
(2014) argued that as organizational learning and LHE both follow a systems model,
promoting wider understandings of these approaches positively affects organizational
outcomes. He described specic LHE success factors, such as strong executive
leadership, training and development, developing knowledge management, harnessing
information technology and ensuring good project governance. Antony broadly
endorsed similar supports to address “organizational, technical, and individual
challenges” (Antony, 2015, p. 893).
Institutional culture considerations. Institutional culture is highly correlated with
LHE’s prospects for success. Balzer (2010) emphasized that LHE required an
appreciation for and, in some cases, changes to organizational culture for employees to
embrace Lean principles and practices. Hines and Lethbridge (2008) warned that a
number of factors related to organizational culture can make LHE implementation
difcult, the most prominent being institutional reluctance to wide-scale change
initiatives. They offered that the most successful change initiatives require a high level
of faculty and employee engagement and emphasized the importance of linking LHE
with an institution’s strategic plan and using clear improvement goals to maximize
stakeholder engagement.
There is some evidence that organizations have an incorrect understanding of Lean
principles and often emphasize improvements over promoting a supportive Lean
culture (Radnor and Bucci, 2011;Thomas et al., 2015). These authors suggested that
employees want to see Lean as adding value to processes, beneting themselves and
other employees, rather than merely a formalized approach to methods and training.
Survey reviews. LHE implementations across 30 US and Canadian institutions were
summarized in a National Consortium for Continuous Improvement study (Paris, 2007).
A key nding was high variances among institutions with respect to LHE practices. For
example, some institutions used centralized departments to lead and promote LHE
initiatives, whereas others opted for a decentralized approach, and about half of the
responding institutions provided LHE project management and leadership training,
whereas the others used external resources. Respondents identied key LHE enablers as
the involvement of senior leadership, links to institutional strategic planning, the use of
cross-functional and inclusive approaches, aligning with higher education culture and
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accreditation initiatives. Respondents viewed negative faculty and staff attitudes and a
lack of overall resources as LHE barriers. Other inhibiting factors included institutional
inertia, organizational size/complexity, decentralization and a tendency for faculty and
staff to protect their “turf”.
Higher education in the UK has been analyzed across the sector to derive
modernization and efciency trends (Baker, 2012;Fearn, 2010;Morgan and Baker, 2011;
Universities UK, 2011). Lean was described in the context of one method of continuous
improvement that has shown promise within UK institutions, primarily as a means to
ensure quality in times of reduced budgets. A UK task group noted that the
post-secondary sector has “hidden the progress” (Universities UK, 2011, p. 5) of achieved
improvements to some extent. This advocacy group claimed that obtaining better
institutional data, simplifying and sharing services and re-examining procurement
approaches would benet the next phases of improvement in higher education.
Conceptual frameworks. Conceptual frameworks have been proposed to
systematically establish improvement priorities, enhance governance models and
formally assess quality (Comm and Mathaisel, 2003). These authors claimed that
frameworks could help build a Lean consortium, target stakeholders, decide the
research agenda, test the research approach, nd best-in-class approaches
(benchmarks), analyze and assess ndings, implement concepts and establish controls
to evaluate desired results. They proposed a Lean enterprise framework based on
operating principles adapted from Nightingale (1999) and concluded that as public and
government expectations of post-secondary education have increased, the use of clear
metrics and an analysis of customer (i.e. student) expectations were essential for
institutional improvement. Balzer (2010) provided a conceptual framework and
practical advice to prepare for and implement LHE institution-wide. He highlighted
where LHE could improve efciency (i.e. enrolment and retention, the student
experience and faculty and staff support services). Balzer concluded that robust support
for Lean in other industry sectors (e.g. manufacturing and healthcare) provided a strong
basis for LHE as a strategic organizational model for dramatic improvements in every
process contributing to the institution’s mission.
Systems approach to improvement. A cyclical approach to improvement (the
Education Lean Improvement Model) has been proposed that emphasizes
understanding of Lean and the systems approach (Holm and Waterbury, 2010;
Waterbury and Holm, 2011). When envisioning institution-wide improvement,
Waterbury (2015) posed important questions for institutional leaders:
Q1. Who will oversee the Lean initiative?
Q2. How will human and nancial resources be allocated?
Q3. When and how will professional development activities be offered?
Q4. How will facilitators continue to develop their skills?
Q5. How will projects be selected?
Q6. How will Lean thinking be introduced into academic departments?
Several authors argued that transparency in communication enhances the systems
approach to improvement (Antony et al., 2012;Barton and Yazdani, 2013). Kang and
Manyonge (2014) reviewed systems of Lean principles from a variety of manufacturing
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settings and provided examples of various types of waste in higher education settings.
Most recently, Balzer et al. (2015) presented a systems approach to guide successful LHE
implementations and more broad consideration of the literature regarding
organizational change management to support it. The authors recommended
institution-wide implementation of LHE through several key steps:
• assessing the existing workplace climate;
• improving leadership awareness, understanding and support for LHE;
• using pilot demonstration projects to gain visibility and credibility;
• creating and strengthening organizational structures to launch and support LHE;
and
• facilitating an institution-wide transition to LHE grounded in respect for
employees and continuous improvement.
Particularity of higher education. Some authors have proposed that Lean has been
introduced into institutions of higher education without adjusting the models used in
manufacturing settings, thus limiting improvements (Thirkell and Ashman, 2014;
Wiegel and Brouwer-Hadzialic, 2015). Douglas et al. observed that LHE had largely been
applied to administrative operations and support services and warned, “if Lean is to
avoid the fate of TQM, it must also be applied to academic processes” (Douglas et al.,
2015, p. 979). With some notable exceptions (Emiliani, 2006), LHE applications on the
core processes of teaching, learning and research remain largely elusive. Arguments
that these processes are more art than science and difcult to standardize have been
made – and addressed – in other professional disciplines such as Lean healthcare and
Lean law (Graban, 2016;MacDonagh, 2014).
The particularity of higher education as it relates to improvement can be argued from
the other direction; that is, perhaps higher education models themselves must adapt to
ensure improvement. In fact, this was mentioned in the rst LHE publication
(Dahlgaard and Østergaard, 2000), which claimed that higher education would require
new organizational structures when implementing Lean thinking to ensure
improvements.
An additional element of higher education institutions absent within industry is
academic freedom. Waterbury noted that “academic freedom and autonomy will
continue to challenge Lean implementation. This debate will likely be the catalyst to
further the knowledge base of Lean thinking in higher education” (Waterbury, 2015,
p. 948). Colleges and universities are complex organizations, and it is not clear which
boundaries academic freedom permeates. “Academic freedom, the most sacred of all
values in higher education, is appropriate for academics, not administrative operations”
(Vyas and Campbell, 2015, p. 20).
Conclusions
Overall, LHE appears to have signicant and measurable value when used to improve
academic and administrative operations. Such improvements are effective at the
department/unit level or throughout the entire institution. However, the literature is
limited (as noted below), and practitioners face challenges relating to aspects of culture,
communication and executive-level support that can lead to incorrect or sub-optimal
application of Lean principles and methodology, thus moderating the improvements.
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Implementing LHE within an institution is a serious undertaking that is most impactful
if it involves long-term, strategic planning. This requires committed executive
management, organizational learning across all institutional levels and signicant
cultural changes within the workplace. Local initiatives may serve as a grassroots
means of encouraging the wider adoption of LHE throughout an institution.
Our literature review identied numerous case-based examples of organizational
improvements that have benetted academic and administrative operations. However,
compelling, evidenced-based conclusions of the overall impact and effectiveness of LHE
initiatives are missing from the current body of literature. The groundwork certainly
has been established for the development of conceptual frameworks to further guide
LHE initiatives. Such frameworks, together with further integration of organizational
development and change management literature, will dene best practices when
implementing LHE locally and throughout the institution.
Directions for future research
Clear themes emerged in the LHE literature relating to organizational design and
culture, a systems view of organizational learning and improvement and adhering to
core Lean principles when seeking institutional change. As the specialized application of
Lean principles and practices in higher education continues to mature and thrive,
several recommendations are offered to challenge and guide the development future
LHE research.
Formalize Lean Higher Education denitions and frameworks
The LHE literature indicates the absence both of conceptual and operational denitions
of LHE. Balzer et al. (2009) noted that sectors outside of higher education similarly lack
similar conceptualizations regarding Lean. In lieu of clear denitions, studies can be
unreliable (i.e. inconsistent across studies), decient (i.e. not fully representative of the
construct) or contaminated (i.e. include other components broader than the original
construct). We recommend that researchers develop a common conceptual LHE
framework to dene, design and evaluate LHE programs. Bayou and de Korvin (2008)
and Shah and Ward (2003) offer frameworks for determining the degree of “leanness”
across differing Lean programs, which might offer practical approaches for assessing
the wide variability among the many different programs. However, not all LHE
researchers believe that a conceptual denition of LHE is needed (Emiliani, 2015b).
Expand measures of Lean Higher Education’s impact
LHE measures typically involved changes in processes (e.g. time to complete, number of
steps and reduced errors) or were expressed in terms of nancial impact. Fewer studies
(Dey, 2007;Pavlovic´ et al., 2014) directly examined the impact of the improved
processes on the individuals who were supposed to benet. Given that the two
fundamental principles of Lean are “continuous improvement” and “respect for
employees”, it is concerning that no published studies have developed measures to
assess these LHE outcomes. For example, employees’ participation in LHE projects
might affect their perceptions of control over their work (level of autonomy and project
prioritization), cognitive demands (expanded problem solving) and accountability
(responsibility for the process). Future researchers should expand the measures they use
to assess LHE impact. For example, Lawrence and Cairns (2015) provided a useful
conceptual framework for choosing measures in business process improvement
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initiatives, and Harrington (1987) offered a comprehensive framework for considering
Lean impact on one measure: cost.
Further develop evidence-based support for Lean Higher Education
Case studies were the most common approach LHE publication type. Although useful, case
studies do not provide the evidence-based support necessary to condently conclude that
LHE interventions resulted in institutional change or generalized results. We recommend
that LHE practitioners and researchers develop more rigorous quasi-experimental and
experimental research designs to reach evidence-based conclusions on the effectiveness and
generalizability of LHE, as well as the value-added benet of combining Six Sigma, DMAIC
and other quality concepts with traditional Lean principles and practices. Cook et al. (1990)
and Cook and Campbell (1979) provided excellent primers for constructing Lean studies
based on the principles of scientic thinking (e.g. ruling out alternative explanations for
ndings, demonstrating causality, etc.).
Widen prospects for Lean Higher Education research
The results of LHE research will be received and interpreted very differently by
different organizational actors. LHE practitioners and researchers should write for
outlets that best translate LHE to the language of the individuals and groups interested
in promoting organizational improvement. Writing should be as jargon-free as possible
to encourage common understandings within groups seeking an interpretation of LHE
results. The results of LHE applications to teaching and learning processes, faculty and
student-driven research and other creative activity in our institutions are surely rich
prospects for future inquiry.
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About the authors
William K. Balzer (PhD) is the Vice President, Faculty Affairs and Strategic Initiatives, at Bowling
Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, USA.
David E. Francis (PhD) is the Principal Consultant at Foxtrot Consulting and Research Inc.,
Saskatchewan, Canada. David E. Francis is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
david.francis@usask.ca
Timothy C. Krehbiel (PhD) is a Professor of Management at the Farmer School of Business,
Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA.
Nicholas Shea is a Student in the Department of Management, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio,
USA.
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