Hi, Gordon:

This has been a perplexing issue for many in education! Perhaps because of  problems in understanding, communicating and transferring lean thinking in the education context!

For example, a recent research study (Bessette, 2012) argued that principles, management, and leadership tactics within standards of businesses recently have proven to become nonconforming in terms of education which prevails and is exercised in businesses!

The author goes on to argue that simplistic operations techniques which have been used and nurtured in the past three decades have shown to become obsolete in terms of the new visions and focuses on realistic goals and plans within companies and organizations.

Furthermore, the author argues that sustainable methods, with the increased concentration in operations management techniques, have proven to be useful and educational in terms of task completion. When companies, associations, and organizations plan and show significant impacts on environments, ecosystems, and societies, they have the ability to enable humans to significantly help improve the surrounding educational methods towards businesses!

Very interesting research. please take a look at it:

• Bessette, D. (2012). THE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES: UTILIZING LEAN THINKING AND SIX SIGMA [6σ] TECHNIQUE EDUCATION IN SUSTAINABLE METHODS. Review Of Management Innovation & Creativity, 5(14), 69-73.

Hope this helps!

Nadeem

Debatable, dear Gordon. But I assume the principles of lean management do converge with the goals of education in some ways!

I am so sorry if I could not understand well the meaning, but I can't realize that education can benefit from principles of lean management. If I am sure, they can use opposite strategies to achieve their goals. I really would like more about this. 

I was not sure what it is either Alva, so I had a look. Here are a few links that may help.

http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/lean-management

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/lean-manufacturing.html

A quick read of these, however, does not make me an expert but here are some thoughts.

Lean management seems to have some similarity with Development Planning (now called Improvement Planning to emphasis the idea that continuous improvement is possible and which seems to be one idea central to lean management) and Quality Assurance Processes that have driven Scottish Education since the 1980s. However, when related to lean manufacturing (which i guess depends on lean management) the sources above seem to refer more strongly than the documents associated with Scottish education processes to elimination of waste  or activities that do not add value. 

I would not disagree that continuous improvement is always possible but different people will have different views on what that means - not everyone agrees with the quality indicators used in Scotland, for example. So, I suspect, people will disagree what lean management looks like in Education, even if they think the principles are good.

And that brings us to values - what would 'not adding value' mean in Education? In Toyota (where this term seems to originate), it will be facilitating profits (directly or indirectly) - or so i imagine. And that brings us back to other questions on RG re authenticity, instrumentalism, metaphors for education, authentic assessment, and so on. Perhaps pertinent here, is to try to bring these questions together and ask if it is appropriate to bring ways of thinking from manufacturing  (dealing with things) to education (dealing with people) even if, on some measures/observations they bring positive results. On others, we might argue that they dehumanise both teachers and students. Does that value (not dehumanising) outweigh others?

Hi Colin,

i think you have captured the essence of my apprehension. It is this business of conflating the management of products and processes with the development of human beings that I fear will do the most disservice to teachers, learners and education in general. Excellent reflection on this issue Colin

There are many possibilities. For example, storytelling is much more than an effective method to teach students to use management concepts to make sense of real life experiences. Practice in storytelling builds  students'" performance" and" learning" skills.

Lean is a methodology for continous improvement. No doubt about it. This tool has not barriers for application, so, education is of course included. The same way happens with PDCA cycle: all activities on life are subjected to this tool, no matter if they particular or business related. If we want to succeed, PDCA effective implementation is vital for any input on life. In the end, it is key for QMS effectiveness and QMS is also applicable to any activity. 

Onto education implementation process we have to identify if there are no value added activities for elimination, in the same manner we do when we are talking about manufacturing for instance. I suggest you to create a group to analyze the different activities involved in the education process as well as their interconnection, purpose, responsible people, time elapse and, consequently, to remove the ones are not necessary. 

Gordon:

Yes, I agree. The central principles of lean management does converge with the goals of education. One of such a goal is to provide a value-added solution to education, teaching and learning. 

I am a proponent of transferring the knowledge from all related fields to the core fields of education and learning.

As many of you have said herein, principles of lean management is not just limited to product development and/or process developments areas; it apply to education and learning fields as well...

In this connection, you may find the following article on the art of knowledge capturing via value stream mapping (borrowed from lean mgt.) an interesting and useful application. 

Take a look...

Conference Paper A Visual-based Methodology for Capturing Technical Memory in...

The principles of Lean are applicable to the field of education. I suggest that the underlying concepts of continuous improvement and respect for people ( the work that people do), in this case for the tasks at hand( learning) for students and adult learners. Application of Lean concepts requires new lens at the leadership level, in any area be it education, healthcare, aviation or business. Lean concepts compel us to respect our most valuable commodity( the people who do the work), or the students who are involving in learning students and teachers whose task is to create social change or healthcare providers whose work impact the health of a nation. The concepts of Lean challenge us to take the Gemba, literally and figuratively, to take our lead from the people who are actually doing the work, or in the case of education, the learning. The goal of most organizations is to balance quality with cost, lean is an approach that may help leaders to achieve this goal. It is a long and protracted process that is closely aligned with the scientific method.

Richardeanea Theodore.