'Lean' may have first been developed in manufacturing but as an approach to ensuring the greatest ongoing operational efficiency it has increasingly been developed for application in other sectors, including the public sector.

Now AIM Management Practices Fellow Dr Zoe Radnor and her colleague Giovanni Bucci of AtoZ Business Consultancy have completed the first independent analysis of the Lean Improvement Methodology in UK Business Schools and Univerities.

Undertaken on behalf of the Association of Business Schools (ABS) the research - based on a combination of a survey questionnaire and five case studies of universities and business schools - found a number of higher education institutions engaging in process management and Lean. The report also highlights the approaches, impact, success factors and barriers of implementing the lean philosophy.

Professor Radnor comments, "In the current climate of austerity it is important that when organisations cut the waste from the system they do not cut the value at the same time. In higher education, like many public services, there can be multi definitions of what constitutes value, which means it is important to understand and improve the system.

"This report highlights a number of Higher Education institutions who are engaging with Lean as an approach to understanding the non-value adding activities within the organisation in order to deliver better services for academia, both teaching and research. There is still some way to go, but the initial results are promising."

Click on the link below for the Executive Summary. The full report can be purchased from the ABS - contact Vicky Robinson for further details.

Download Executive Summary PDF file