Implementing lean in Malaysian universities: Lean awareness level in an engineering faculty of a local university

Experience of lean application in higher education institutions

“…This study, like many published articles (Hines and Lethbridge, 2008;Radnor and Bucci, 2011;Kang and Manyonge, 2014;Balzer et al, 2016;Sunder, 2016;Pilkauskaite-Valickiene and Valickas, 2016;Nadeau, 2017;Khairi and Rahman, 2018), has demonstrated that Lean initiatives and activities help HEIs to improve their academic programmes and services, efficiency of internal processes, employee productivity, to enhance satisfaction of students and other stakeholders, to eliminate waste and to create the institutional culture of continuous improvement.…”

“…Application of LHE is accompanied by numerous challenges. Various studies showed that the key barriers were the lack of commitment, management support and accountability, negative employee opinion and resistance, insufficient communication, the inability to convey Lean principles in the academic society, the lack of training and resources, institutional inertia, organizational size and complexity, willingness of faculties to protect their autonomy and difficulties in characterizing the customer and the created value (Comm and Mathaisel, 2005;Flumerfelt and Banachowski, 2011;Radnor and Bucci, 2011;Thirkell and Ashman, 2014;Douglas et al, 2015;Waterbury, 2015;Nadeau, 2017;Balzer et al, 2015;Balzer et al, 2016;Khairi and Rahman, 2018). This study outlined the importance of the complexity of the community and its processes as the main barrier for Lean implementation.…”

“…Institutions may use tool-based Leana few Lean tools such as Kanban boards or Gemba walk (Yorkstone, 2016;Parsons and MacCallum, 2019). Other universities may use tools such as value stream mapping, five why's, Kaizen, Pokayoke, Jidoka, process mapping, flow charts, written process cards, fishbone/Ishikawa diagram, nominal group techniques, competency framework, visual management, team information boards, root cause analysis and standard operational procedures (Nadeau, 2017;Khairi and Rahman, 2018). It is maintained that rapid improvement workshops/events as assessment and improvement tools should be implemented first as these achieve some quick wins, clear focus and engagement, while workplace audits will allow Lean to become embedded in the day-to-day processes and service delivery (Radnor and Bucci, 2011).…”

“…The main problems may stem from the administration's ignorance and inability to notify of key Lean principles in the academic setting (Thirkell and Ashman, 2014). Other studies highlighted the lack of accountability, negative employee attitudes, managerial resistance, lack of knowledge of Lean practices, lack of training, lack of resources, institutional inertia, organizational size and complexity, the academic freedom and the faculty's willingness to protect its autonomy, limited knowledge of customers and erroneous identification of the value for them (Radnor and Bucci, 2011;Douglas et al, 2015;Waterbury, 2015;Nadeau, 2017;Balzer et al, 2015;Balzer et al, 2016;Khairi and Rahman, 2018). All Lean practices have their own risks, for example, not all activities requiring improvement are included in improvement programs; without the support of facilitators, improvements may be made at the expense of other activities; it can be difficult to achieve employees' participation in process improvement as they are unaware of the tools or methods; it is not easy to achieve that all applied tools should be part of a wider initiative aiming at cultural change (Emiliani, 2005;Yorkstone, 2016).…”

“…Despite numerous published scientific articles on the benefits of Lean (Antony, 2014;Douglas et al, 2015;Thomas et al, 2015;Narayanamurthy et al, 2017;Khairi and Rahman, 2018;Antony et al, 2018), there are few worldwide studies on the experience of Lean in HEIs (Comm and Mathaisel, 2005;Radnor and Bucci, 2011;Robinson and Yorkstone, 2014;Thirkell and Ashman, 2014;Waterbury, 2015;Nadeau, 2017). Although the ways in which higher education organizations are structured, funded and function across different countries differ , sharing these different experiences and promoting the development of LHE would be very important and beneficial for everyone in the academic society (Radnor and Bucci, 2011;Nadeau, 2017).…”