Page 274 - Crisis in Higher Education

Reforming Administration and Management • 245

get good jobs, and have little or no student debt. These are resource
issues. Did the university spend its resource effectively or was there
a lot of waste? Did universities place unnecessary requirements on
students and faculty that caused them to spend time on nonproduc-
tive activities? Simply stated, these efforts are about the elimination
of waste. These ideas can be traced back to Henry Ford, more than
100 years ago, and were expanded and modernized as the Toyota
Production System and just in time. The concept of lean thinking is
built on this foundation. There are many books on lean, but the best
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known is by Womack and Jones. The application of lean thinking
to universities is a more recent phenomenon. The book by Balzer
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describes lean higher education and provides important and useful
insights.
2. Quality: Quality and lean go hand in hand because poor quality is
wasteful. Any meaningful discussion of lean must include quality. The
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book by Voehl et al. on six-sigma quality describes its application:
Two books on quality in higher education are suggested. The first one
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by Frazier does not focus directly on higher education, but it should
be useful in formulating a plan to improve quality. The second by
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Brennan and Shah provides a more academic perspective on man-
aging quality in higher education.
3. Value stream mapping: It is a technique to document, analyze, and
improve the flow of information and materials to produce a good or pro-
vide a service. It allows managers to layout existing processes, identify
actions that are wasteful as well as those that add value, and create more
productive processes. There are many books on value stream mapping,
and the book by Keyte and Locher provides a useful overview.
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4. Implementing process redesign: Once value stream mapping describes
a better way to do registration and financial aid, it must be imple-
mented. This involves the commitment, support, and involvement
of the executive level and middle management. Without their strong
push, inertia will not be overcome, and radical change will die. The
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book by Hammer and Champy is a good book on business process
redesign and implementation.
5. Continuous improvement: No process is perfect, and even if it was,
change occurs and the process must be updated. Continuous improve-
ment is a commonly used technique that allows organizations to make
incremental process improvements. Once again, there are many books
on continuous improvement. One of the books is by Imai. 28