Abstract

During the last decade researchers and practitioners are increasingly more involved in a discussion on lean model application in different organizational settings. Contemporary environment of higher education institutions is becoming challenging and many universities confront the problems of fluctuating support from the state. There is a growing trend to view higher education not as a societal good but as personal choice, therefore the number of students also fluctuates. The society demands greater public accountability for the money invested, also some business and political leaders see higher education simply as training for the job [4]. Recent changes to university funding from government in Lithuania, demographical situation (decreasing number of graduates from high schools), and relatively high number of higher education institutions raise the challenge to the authorities of higher education institutions of how to improve quality not only in the study programs but in overall management and how not to heighten but even to reduce the costs of education and research. In this context, attempts have been made to transfer lean principles and practice to the higher education sector. The main idea of lean is the emphasis on the value, which is defined by the customer. This is in high contradiction to traditional concept of the higher education institution. From the worldwide perspective, it can be noted that results of adapting lean model in higher education institutions are very diverse [2], [5], [13]. A mainstream prescriptive discourse suggests that lean is diffusing into higher education environments, providing a much-needed rethink of traditional ways of working and stimulating radical performance improvements. However, extension of lean principles to higher education was not so widespread and fast as it could be expected taking into consideration the development of commodification in various spheres of the society. Aim of the article is to evaluate the opportunities and limitations of lean in higher education on the basis of analysis of theoretical and empirical works relating to lean application in higher education institutions and also on the basis of the experience of the author applying lean methods in the process of improving the quality of studies. Research is based on the analysis of theoretical assumptions, secondary data and cases of application of lean principles in higher education institutions.

INTRODUCTION

Societal institutions, including higher education institutions, are built to large extent on “institutionalized myths” and behavior in the institutions is determined not by considerations of technical efficiency and effectiveness but by the need and desire to comply with accepted beliefs, rules, and norms. Survival of one institutional option over others is likely to please some social actors more than others. These actors are motivated by self-interest, also by their values and cultural beliefs, which arise in a context of existing institutions [9].
European higher education has its roots in religious institutions. This suggests an internally focused higher education organization that reflects the values and expectations of the inner actors, their networks and coalitions (faculty, professors), who determine academic degrees, curriculum, and requirements based on their disciplinary and pedagogical expertise. It is their responsibility to set and uphold the standards for higher education with vigor and determination. Any demands of outer stakeholders can anytime be declared as groundless [4].
However contemporary environment of higher education institutions is becoming challenging and many universities confront the problems of fluctuating support from the state. There is a growing trend to view higher education not as a societal good but as personal choice, therefore the numbers of students also fluctuates. The society demands greater public accountability for the money invested, also some business and political leaders see higher education simply as training for the job [4].
In this context attempts have been made to transfer lean principles and practice to the higher education sector. Lean is one of the world’s most influential management ideas often conceived as a combination of good operations management and effective people management that enables an organization to implement process improvement and thus increase their efficiency and quality [14].
The main idea of Lean is the emphasis on the value, which is defined by the customer and expressed in cost, quality, variety and time. As some scholars note, nowadays students have a choice – instead of going to a local moderately expensive university with mediocre teaching or perhaps no university at all, they could pursue their studies from home, free of charge or paying a small fee, attending to lectures from leading world science authorities within different subjects at any rate of study [7], i.e. some universities applying contemporary organizational and educational methods can provide significantly more value than others.
This is in high contrast to widely accepted concept of the higher education institution which is mainly based on tradition. A mainstream prescriptive discourse suggests that lean is diffusing into higher education environments, providing a much-needed rethink of traditional ways of working and stimulating radical performance improvements. However extension of lean principles to higher education was not so much widespread and fast as it could be expected taking into consideration the development of commodification in various spheres of the society.
Aim of the article is to evaluate the opportunities and limitations of lean in higher education on the basis of analysis of theoretical and empirical works relating to lean application in higher education institutions and also on the basis of the author’s experience applying lean methods in the process of improving the quality of studies. This research is based on the analysis of theoretical assumptions, secondary data and cases of application of lean principles in higher education institutions. Therefore the paper contributes to the debate by analyzing opportunities and limitations of application of lean principles in the sphere of higher education institutions (in education and research).

PRINCIPLES OF LEAN APPLICABLE TO HIGHER EDUCATION

Lean is a generally understood as business improvement philosophy in the manufacturing industry and performance improvement intervention in a number of other industries such as services, health care, construction and, of course, education [1]. Lean manufacturing is one of the initiatives that many major businesses across the globe have been trying to adopt in order to remain competitive in an increasingly competitive global market. Lean philosophy originated in Japan from Toyota production system. The essential concept of lean is in concentrating to highlight the added and non-added value process/activities, which can help in improving the efficiency of production lines by expenditure of resources for a goal and service or end product except waste [8]. The main principles of lean were most clearly defined by Womack and Jones [14], [15], [16].
The critical starting point for lean thinking is value, which is expressed in terms of a specific product (a good or a service, and often both at once) which meets the customer’s needs at a specific price at a specific time, variety and quality. But who specifies the value? In the post Second World War period value was specified by the engineers and managers of the companies. Designs with more complexity produced with ever more complex machinery were asserted to be just what the customer wanted and just what the production process needed. Doubts about proposed products were often countered with claims that “the customer will want it once we explain it”, while product failures were often explained away as instances where “the customers weren’t sophisticated enough to grasp the merits of the product” [14], [15], [16].
However such an understanding consequently led to misunderstandings between producers and customers. As the opposition to the above described thinking lean philosophy starts with completely different assumptions and a conscious attempt to precisely define value through a dialogue with specific customers. This is uneasy task partly because most producers want to make what they are already making and partly because many customers only know how to ask for some variant of what they are already getting. They simply start in the wrong place and end up at the wrong destination. Then, when producers or customers do decide to rethink value, they often fall back on simple formulas – lower cost, increased product variety through customization, instant delivery – rather than jointly analyzing value and challenging old definitions to see what’s really needed. Therefore, according to lean philosophy, searching for fundamentally new capabilities that will permit organizations to create value in unimagined dimensions, might enable to substantially increase sales. They should find a mechanisms for rethinking the value of their core products to their customers. Contemporary customer wants to pay just for what he really needs, but not always for what can be technically produced [16]. This is undoubtedly true for the customers of contemporary higher education institutions.
The second principle of lean is identification of value stream. The value stream is the set of all the specific actions required to bring a specific product (whether a good, a service, or, increasingly, a combination of the two) through the three critical management tasks of any business. Value stream analysis will almost always show that three types of actions are occurring along the value stream: (1) many steps will be found to undoubtedly create value; (2) many other steps will be found to create no value but to be unavoidable with current technologies and production assets (they are called type one muda); (3) many additional steps will be found to create no value as perceived by the customer and to be immediately avoidable (type two muda). Value stream is based on the principle of measurement. Just as activities that can’t be measured can’t be properly managed as the activities which can’t be precisely identified, analyzed, and linked together can’t be challenged, improved (or eliminated altogether), and, eventually, perfected [14], [15], [16].
Once value has been precisely specified, the value stream for a specific product fully mapped by the lean enterprise, and obviously wasteful steps eliminated, it’s time for the next step in lean thinking – value-creating steps flow. We are usually all born into a mental world of “functions” and “departments,” a commonsense conviction that activities ought to be grouped by type so they can be performed more efficiently and managed more easily. In addition, to get tasks done efficiently within departments, it seems like further common sense to perform like activities in batches. However batches, as it turns out, always mean long waits as the product wait the department’s changeover to the type of activity the product needs next. This approach keeps the members of the department busy, all the equipment running, and “justifies” high-speed expensive equipment. Actually, it’s not true, but it is hard or impossible to see. It appears that things work better when you focus on the product and its needs, rather than the organization or the equipment, so that all the activities needed to design, order, and provide a product occur in continuous flow. In order to make value flow it is essential to focus on the actual object – the specific design, the specific order, and the product itself and never let it out of sight from beginning to completion. This obliges to ignore the traditional boundaries of jobs and departments or even organizations [16].
The next principle of lean is pull. The essence of it is clearly expressed in the following: don’t make anything until it is needed, then it is needed – make it very quickly. That is, you can allow the customer to pull the product from you as needed rather than pushing products, often unwanted, onto the customer (including inner customer) [16].
And the last principle of lean is perfection. As organizations begin to accurately specify value, identify the entire value stream, make the value-creating steps for specific products flow continuously, and let customers pull value from the enterprise, something very odd begins to happen. It dawns on those involved that there is no end to the process of reducing effort, time, space, cost, and mistakes while offering a product which is ever more nearly what the customer actually wants. Suddenly perfection, the fifth and final principle of lean thinking, doesn’t seem like a crazy idea. Because the four initial principles interact with each other in a virtuous circle. Getting value to flow faster always exposes hidden waste in the value stream. Dedicated product teams in direct dialogue with customers always find ways to specify value more precisely. Perhaps the most important spur to perfection is transparency, the fact that in a lean system everyone can see everything, and so it’s easy to discover better ways to create value. What’s more, there is nearly instant and highly positive feedback for employees making improvements, a key feature of lean work and a powerful spur to continuing efforts to improve. Perfection becomes infinity. Trying to envision it (and to get there) is actually impossible, but the effort to do so provides inspiration and direction essential to making progress [14], [15], [16].
All five principles may be used in higher education institutions seeking to improve the quality of education and science. But question arises to what extent and how that could be done concretely, what opportunities and limitations arise across the path?

OPPORTUNITIES OF LEAN IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Scholars find that although lean as a powerful business process improvement strategy has been around for over ten years, its applications in the context of higher education institutions are still in their embryonic stages [7], [11]. However it has to be admitted that many universities and colleges have already benefitted from lean projects in a number of service areas including admissions, the administration of research funds, hiring, and nearly any functional area where multi-step processes can be simplified and focused on the needs of the users served by the organization [4].

Considering opportunities of lean application in higher education institutions it is important to have in mind managerial efficiency and effectiveness aspects. Efficiency is essentially a comparison between inputs used in a certain activity and produced outputs. Thus efficiency is more related to inner intermediate organizational processes. Effectiveness refers to the connection between inputs, outputs and more general, second layer type objectives or outcomes. According to this definition, while outputs from tertiary education are graduated students or published papers (efficiency), outcomes to which these outputs in principle concur may be higher productivity, employability, innovation, or economic growth (effectiveness) [3].

Lean can be applied for both efficiency and effectiveness improvement, everything depends on the scope of lean project. When efficiency is concerned we speak about inner customers and inner values. In case of effectiveness – the purpose is final value of the customers of higher education, i.e. value of education and value of science products. In any case the starting point is the link between the continuous improvement projects and the strategic objectives of the higher education institution. It is important to select those projects which are directly aligned with strategic goals of the organization [2].

Many universities and colleges apply lean just for administrative processes improvement, however some are going beyond that improving core processes relating to their main purpose and ultimate value provided by higher education.

Author of the article, seeking to increase effectiveness of the study processes, analyzed the value of the studies as it is understood by the main category of the university stakeholders and customers – students. The analysis indicated that beyond the professional and generic competencies and the diplomas, which are considered to be formal purposes of studies, the following were very important components providing value from the perspective of the students:

• Career after studies (employability, freedom to choose job, self-reliance in work, possibility to change job or even profession if necessary);
• Ability to create, participate and use the network of professionals;
• Ability to establish yourself in the community of professionals;
• Meaningful time spend during the studies (as opposition to wasted time watching television, wondering in supermarkets or performing routine jobs in organizations);
• Learning to oppose constructively (against bureaucracy, injustice, lawlessness in the society in general).

These aspects of value of the studies are usually not on the formal curriculum of studies, however they are much important for the majority of students of the university. The students attend university also due to the above indicated aspects of value. Therefore from the perspective of the university seeking to attract and maintain more students it is not sufficient to predefine value for the students in the description of study programs, but it is reasonable to pay more attention to value of studies as described by the students themselves or even to invent new value dimensions in the dialogue with the students. It is evident that lean principles obligate higher education institutions to create the systems of studies enabling to flexibly react to changing needs of students enabling to pull the required value. The same is true concerning the value of science, which has also not to be pushed by the universities and colleges towards some possible consumers of it, but should be pulled the stakeholders which really need it.         

Considering the principle of value stream, it has to be noted that very perspective topic relating to lean application in higher education is waste elimination. Usually higher education institutions tend to define their purposes and strategy in abstract terms (for example: we shape the future generations, we do the science, which will improve well-being of the society), which justify their existence in the eyes of the public. The institutions usually do not to think much about waste, which is imbedded in all the processes not creating sufficient value to the main clients of the institutions.        

In this respect Kang analyses the waste in higher educational institutes with respect to the three fundamental elements i.e. students, research and staff. The main sources of waste in higher education institutions analyzed by Kang are: overproduction, waiting, transportation, over-processing, excess inventory, defects, excess motion. This can provide the basic framework for other process improvement implementations in higher educational institutions [8].

Isaksson, Kuttainen, and Garvare indicate the following types of waste the analysis of which is the most promising in the institutions of higher education [7]:

• Inventory – frontloading (storing) of knowledge which is supposed to be used much later. The problem with attending theoretical courses like mathematics that are supposed to be used much later is that much of the acquired learning is not retained in memory and therefore becomes waste.
• Waiting – waiting for entry, for courses, for exams, for teacher feedback, for paper review, acceptance, publication etc. This could be the most important waste in education and in research.
• Over-processing – in the research process the peer review system could lead to over-processing. With different reviewers having aspirations to keep high standards on all levels this could lead to lengthy non value adding waiting.
• Overproduction – an example is university education without employment opportunities. Research papers mainly for the purpose of merits. One interpretation could be that doing things not asked for by the customer are seen as over-production.
• Defects – course throughput and failed articles. Under-production or not doing things needed could be interpreted as defects.

Balzer identifies five different types of waste in higher education institutions [4]:

• People waste. It refers to the category of waste that occurs when universities fail to capitalize fully on the knowledge, skills and abilities of employees and work groups. Five specific groups of people waste can be identified: waste of goal misalignment, of incorrect assignment, of waiting, of motion, of non-optimal processing.
• Process waste. It refers to the cluster of wastes that occurs due to shortcomings in the design or implementation of university processes. Twelve specific process waste can be identified: waste of ineffective control, of variability, of tampering, of nonstrategic effort, of unreliable processes, of non-standardization, of sub-optimization, of poor scheduling, of work-arounds, of uneven flow, of checking, of correcting errors. 
• Information waste. It refers to the category of wastes that occurs when available information is deficient for supporting university processes. Five specific types of information waste can be identified: waste of information translation, of missing information, of information loss due to hands-offs, of irrelevant information, of inaccurate information.
• Asset waste. It refers to cluster of wastes that occurs when the university does not use its resources (human, facilities, and materials) in the most effective manner. Four specific types of asset waste can be identified: waste of overproduction and inventory, of unnecessary transport, of fixed assets, of overburdening people, equipment and facilities.  
• Leadership waste. It refers to higher order level of waste that allows other forms of waste to remain hidden or continue. Four specific types of leadership waste can be identifies: waste of focus, of structure, of discipline, of ownership. 

Some scholars analyzing waste in higher education institutions conclude that might have to be looked from a national perspective and not from a University perspective since it could be that the main waste created resides in the overall system [7]. Therefore there is an opportunity for finding it there. Thus systemic analysis of waste in higher education institutions is much promising endeavor enabling to give valuable ideas for the process improvement.  

Analyzing lean higher education in comparison to traditional higher education Balzer finds the following advantages and opportunities for lean [4]:

• Lean is a comprehensive and all aspects encompassing approach to institutional change and improvement. Other approached such as TQM, statistical process control, team building, process engineering, responsibility centered budgeting, management centered budgeting, goal setting and others attempt to improve one aspect of institution reducing the likelihood that intervention will succeed over time [4]. Trying to improve a process in isolation when problems occur can sub-optimize the overall performance of our end-to-end process (or system) unless we have a good understanding of the impact of adjusting or improving a sub-process within a process [2].
• Lean higher education respects and balances the needs of the institution with those of its employees. The goal of lean is to create flow and to eliminate unnecessary activities that overburden employees and contribute no value to a process designed to benefit students. Improving the flow of the process relieves employees of unnecessary and unproductive tasks thereby allowing them to reinvest this time in a new ways that add value to existing university processes. This enriches their jobs and enhances their own satisfaction and performance. In this way, both university and employees benefit creating a climate of trust and mutual support. Work in an organization where value is made to flow continuously also creates the conditions for psychological flow [4], [16].
• Lean offers practical tools for implementing change and improvement having the purpose of perfection. Over the years, lean practitioners have accumulated a number of techniques that may be readily applicable for use in higher education settings. The availability of standardized tools makes it easier to implement lean with confidence [4]. For example very important are the methods, techniques and procedures for establishing value of the products or services provided by the university or college to certain categories of clients. The concept of voice of the customer is among the most important [17].    

Thus there is considerable evidences supporting the extension of lean principles and practices to higher education. Lean principles allow to open the opportunity to changing power structures of the higher education institutions, which are taken by the academic elites hiding behind the slogans of traditional higher education. Only teachers and scholars who are able to understand and fulfil the changing value of the customers of higher education institution should be employed. However this is a real challenge for the institutions.        

LIMITATIONS OF LEAN IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Considering the limitations of lean in higher education we should again start from the customer value. The first question which arises is following: is it possible to clearly define the value from the point of view of the clients of higher education institutions, i.e. can value of studies and value of research (science) could be stated by students and customers of research? The attempts are worth efforts. However analyzing the value relating to studies it can be implied that higher education will always retain the broader and complex mission of empowering critical citizenship, not just preparing for the job and profession. And in respect to research and science, in majority of cases stakeholders and clients can’t clearly articulate what concretely they want. This situation is related to the position of science in the society and the nature of science itself. In the majority of cases it creates the condition of impossibility of ordering concrete fundamental research to answer concrete questions, i.e. predefining the value of the research. Therefore the first obstacle to lean in higher education is difficulty in determining customer value.  

One more important aspect in this respect is the sphere of academic work itself, which is a very emotive thing, teaching, it is about showing personality and getting ideas across and engaging with people. Therefore the idea of leaning that process is alien to a lot of the academics. They did not tolerate lean due to its over emphasis on measurements [13]. The issue of resistance may develop from the unique nature and social tradition of universities. Many academics view their professional autonomy as the essence of their occupation – the principle reason why they became professors and researchers [13]. According to Ferlie and Geraghty (2005), universities are different from commercial and even other public organizations because they produce knowledge rather than goods or service [6]. Indicators of success in higher education are different than for private sector businesses.

Value in higher education can’t be sought using predefined methods application of which could be measured. Thus it could be implied that lean is not so much suitable for highly complicated creative industries and jobs, but readily can be applied for routine and repeatable jobs and spheres of organizational functioning. This may be the reason why lean, were it was applied, usually lacks the commitment from the staff of the higher education institutions. Some scholars investigating the problem even claim that the outcome of lean from a human resource management perspective was increasing absenteeism and stress and deterioration in the quality of working life [13].

However the resistance of academics has not to be accepted as it is but studied carefully. It is evident that higher education institutions are also organizations which have their own inner politics and many academic have their own positions and privileges. Therefore some resistance could be rooted not in lean itself but in the fact that lean makes all the processes, which fall under the scope of lean projects, transparent, including those concerned with the usage of time, money and other resources which are formally devoted for the purposes students and science, but informally may be used for private purposes of some prevailing groups of higher education institutions.       

Beyond issues of resistance there were also problems of lean in coherence and coordination. Many elements of what a university delivers draw on participation from a variety of functions across the institution [13]. Thus one more limitation is related to experienced inability to concretely identify value stream and assure flow of value in the system of higher education which is highly complicated. It is widely known and accepted that teaching and science must interact in the higher education institution, it is possible to prepare abstract value flow maps connecting teaching and science. However the problems start on the concrete level where such questions of how and how much the research projects implemented by the professors are related to what they teach to students. We have to admit that these issues require further investigation.      

One more organizational aspect could be considered to be limitation of lean in higher education. In many countries public services are currently designed to be capacity-led, and hence there is limited or no ability, or willingness, to influence demand, or to re-use freed-up resources to grow the business [10], [12]. Therefore many higher education institutions and the organizational culture prevailing in them are oriented not towards cost reduction and customer value increase, but to attracting public money and spending it. Thus they usually see the value not in that they create for the customers, but their existence itself. To paraphrase Descartes “We exist, therefore it is valuable for the society”.  

CONCLUSIONS

The main principles of lean – customer value definition, identification of value stream, value-creating steps flow, pull and perfection – provide a good opportunity for higher education institutions to rethink their operations and improve quality of education and science. Lean, comparing to other organizational change methods, is a comprehensive and all aspects encompassing approach to institutional change and improvement. It respects and balances the needs of the institution with those of its employees. Lean offers practical tools for implementing change and improvement having the purpose of perfection.

The main spheres where lean can be successfully applied are customer value and waste analysis. The most important idea regarding the value provided by higher education institution is that it can’t give absolute value, but surely can give a great value if focuses its efforts. Many aspects of value of the studies are usually not on the formal curriculum of studies, however they are much important for the majority of students. Therefore from the perspective of the university seeking to attract and maintain more students it is not sufficient to predefine value of the students in the description of study programs, but it is reasonable to pay more attention to value of the studies as described by the students themselves. Contemporary higher education institutions and students in the process of interaction have the opportunity to discover new value dimensions. Lean principles obligate higher education institutions to create the systems of studies enabling to flexibly react to changing needs of students enabling to pull the required value.

The main limitations of lean in higher education are difficulty in determining customer value, the uniqueness of the sphere of academic work itself, resistance of academics, immeasurability of some creative processes which are essential for higher education, inability to concretely identify value stream and assure flow of value in the system of higher education which is highly complicated. Due to that lean has limited breadth of application, in respect to functional areas and activities, and limited depth of application, in respect of indicating change to working practices and measurable outcomes. There is a greater focus on rapid improvement and project based activities around one or several operations, which are redesigned, but not always re-visited or monitored for longer periods. There is less of a focus on developing a lean culture, which is no less relevant in quality improvement efforts.

However it has to be admitted that lean is still in the early days of its application higher education. This means that there is still a lot of opportunity and much that can be learnt from other public service and private organizations.  

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