Methodological Approaches to Estimating the Progress of Universities in Lean Production

Abstract

The rapid development of lean production in Russian universities needs new methodological approaches to assess the ongoing processes. The research objective was to develop a new methodological approach to the progress assessment of lean production at universities. The approach is based on the effect of principles, tools, and scope of lean production on its qualitative and quantitative indicators, e.g. the number of methods, projects implemented, work standards, etc. This approach makes it possible to determine the development level of lean production systems on the basis of quantitative indicators, as well as to compare different universities with each other. The experiment featured two universities of the Association of Lean Universities, namely Maikop State Technological University and Kuban State Medical University. In terms of the main indicators, both universities appeared to be quite similar: they had almost the same number of implemented projects, mapped flows, and visualizations, as well as the level of time savings and stakeholder satisfaction. This result can be explained by the general policy of implementing lean production, as well as by a shared scientific and methodological basis. Kuban State Medical University had a slightly greater coverage of training in the field of lean production, standardization, etc. Maikop State Technological University proved to be more active in studying the needs of stakeholders and student involvement. Both universities paid insufficient attention to the cost assessment of the results of lean production. They also had poor management indicators for sustainability processes. The developed methodology may be of interest for university management, since it helps to substantiate decisions made on the basis of a comparative analysis. It can also serve as a basis for a new ranking of lean universities.