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The purpose of this paper is to respond to the increasing demands that education currently faces and develop a structured approach for the implementation of lean thinking (LT) in primary and secondary education (P&SE) and empirically validated it.

An extended literature review was conducted of studies on LT in education, service and manufacturing, in which a preliminary list was formed of LT dimensions, which were subsequently reviewed by a focus group. An instrument was generated, which was distributed to 1,400 education professionals, and 394 replies were received. The measures were tested for validity and reliability. After the first round of analyses, measures were tested further to strengthen the proposed instrument.

The findings confirmed that the instrument developed is both valid and reliable and that the proposed measures consist actual dimensions of LT in P&SE. A number of success factors that would be required for LT initiatives to be implemented effectively within the P&SE context in a holistic perspective were revealed.

Although a number of studies have been developed on LT in the manufacturing or service sector, its implementation in education and particularly in P&SE remains scant. The instrument developed provides sufficient knowledge of which are the most important dimensions to consider when pondering LT in education.

While LT has been the subject of previous research in education, this study represented the first look at lean in P&SE and was the first of its kind to develop and validate in a real environment a lean implementation instrument for use in educational institutions. Researchers and practitioners can use the proposed instrument to build models of facilitating practices to improve performance while contributing to economic growth and enhancing social empowerment.

The purpose of this paper is to capture challenges faced and lessons learned when implementing Lean in higher education.

During 2010-2014, faculty, staff, and administration from three community colleges and four four-year universities attended Educational Lean workshops. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the administrators who originally sought the training opportunity or their designee who coordinated Lean events.

The paper provides insights from seven colleges and universities who have experience with implementing Lean in higher education. Organizational and personal elements are identified and discussed along with seven critical reflection questions to consider before implementing Lean.

Further research is needed to understand the role of the senior leadership team when implementing Lean as a continuous improvement strategy. This research provides some insight, but is limited to the factors identified by the seven institutions.

The findings of this study can be used to assist higher education institutions considering a Lean initiative. Critical reflection questions include: Who will oversee the Lean initiative? How will human and financial resources be allocated? When and how will professional development opportunities be offered for senior leaders, facilitators, and employees? How will facilitators continue to develop their skills? How will projects be selected? How will Lean thinking be introduced into academic departments?

This provides original research in the area of implementing Lean in higher education and its concurrent challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to study the attitudes of higher education employees to the change with Lean at public universities in Morocco in order to determinate the factors of resistance to change and to look for the motivating factors that encourage these employees to participate in change project with Lean.

A questionnaire sent to all administrative and technical staff of higher education at five public universities in Morocco during year 2019. This study has analyzed both a person-oriented approach and a variable-oriented approach and characterized by using Lewin’s change model to manage change with Lean.

The results show that individual, organizational and group factors have a positive impact on employees’ attitudes toward change with Lean but individual factors are more important than other factors.

The research is limited to universities in Morocco and mainly public universities. It is only interested in the first stage in the change process with Lean (unfreezing). Understanding employee attitudes, determining motivation factors and the causes behind resistance to change before embarking in change journey with Lean Higher Education (LHE) enables the public universities in Morocco (management) to better prepare for change by reducing resistance to change to create a favorable climate to implement LHE.

The majority of research works to date focus on implementation of LHE without giving interest to the preparation of the organizational change, this last is very much requested to determine the driving and restraining forces in order to reduce the resistance to change that is the main reason of failure of many change programs. This paper attempts to determinate the factors of resistance to change which allows to the public universities in Morocco to overcome them before moving to the changing stage.

The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the accumulated body of research on Lean in higher education, draw conclusions to help guide successful Lean implementations and propose future research directions to establish a rich base of knowledge that informs both practice and research.

This literature review examines the academic literature regarding the use of Lean in higher education across 64 publications. EBSCO definitions were used to assess and present the synthesized results, which are detailed at the department/unit level and at the organizational level.

Overall, Lean appears to have significant and measurable value when used to improve academic and administrative operations in higher education. Such improvements are effective at the department/unit level or throughout the entire institution. However, implementing Lean within an institution is a serious undertaking that is most impactful if it involves long-term, strategic planning.

The groundwork has been established for the development of conceptual frameworks to further guide Lean initiatives in higher education. Such frameworks, together with further integration of organizational development and change management literature will define best practices when implementing Lean locally and throughout the institution.

At the time of this writing, there has been no systematic review or integration of the published literature about Lean in higher education. This review provides a highly useful starting point for researchers interested in further developing theory about quality in academic institutions.

This study describes how two organisations transitioned to teaching Lean online during and post Covid-19. This study aims to establish how Lean teaching and training can be designed and delivered effectively online without adverse effects on the student’s learning experience of Lean concepts.

A case study approach was used to review the design, application and results of the transition to online Lean teaching and training. Qualitative and quantitative methods were deployed to assess the results.

Online Lean learning and application were assured via the design of practical problem-based teaching environments, aided by using the virtual classroom as an obeya room and as a kaizen environment where students worked in teams. Students were enabled to learn and apply Lean tools practically and reflect on their learnings.

This study demonstrates that effective online design can ensure. Lean methods are understood without affecting the student's learning, classroom experience and grasp of concepts.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is one of the first studies on implementing Lean training and education online during COVID-19 under the lens of both a training provider and university education viewpoint. The changes validated best practices for virtual Lean education and training in the organisations under study, maintained post-COVID.

This paper aims to assess the needs for a lean continuous improvement professional certificate and/or lean leadership cognate for a Doctorate of Education in leadership focused in three main research questions: “What do organizational leaders need from a Lean graduate programming?”; “What are the preferable methods of delivery for Lean teaching/learning?” and “What are the main learner outcomes and do how these impact organizational and continuous improvement outcomes?”

A survey to 37 organizational leaders in a North-American state was conducted via telephone and email that were returned to the researcher. The survey was designed to target a solid cross-section of organizational decision makers in regard to the need for and type of lean training desired, if at all, for employees. Using a mixed methods approach, the survey was designed to collect both qualitative and quantitative information.

Respondents indicated that lean continuous improvement thinking and lean process-project management were most the desirable content options. The method of delivery was not as clear with on-ground and online relying on job-embedded, project-based methods as most desirable approaches. Learner outcomes of mastery of lean content along with the ability to impact organizational and continuous improvement outcomes were favored.

Lean leadership education is valued learning by organizational leaders. As so, higher education institutions must be aware of matching better organizational needs with learning experiences. This paper presents a survey that intended to do this in an original way.

There is no argument that using games (gamification) is an efficient way of learning in higher education. The questions, though, are which gamification approach is most suitable at that level and how to assess its suitability? This paper aims to attempt to partially answer these two questions, in the context of lean thinking education.

The paper offers an assessment criteria to investigate the impact of lean gamification based on the evaluation of motivational, cognitive and social processing during games. In addition, a study is conducted among selected games using these assessment criteria. The study included statistical as well as comparative analysis. The study was based on a sample of undergraduate students learning various lean thinking concepts through physical games over the course of six months.

Results showed different interaction levels between the three evaluation criteria depending on the type and design of the lean game. The reported scores and analysis drew various lessons on how to use gamification in the context of lean teaching, outlined some best practices in lean games design and suggested recommendations in mapping lean games from industrial domain to higher education domain.

The scope of this research was bounded by the sample size of students as well as the selected nine lean thinking games. Larger pool of students as well as other lean thinking games can offer further insights and confirm the outlined ones.

The presented work will help lean thinking educators in higher education to better understand the student dynamics associated with engaging them in this type pf pedagogical approach. It will help guiding lean thinking games’ designer on how to better cater for this segment of lean thinking learners. Finally, it will aid in promoting lean gamification as an effective learning tool.

The social impact is achieved through enhancing lean thinking education to a wide number of students. This will positively impact the society through the application of the effective lean tools at different stages, levels and places in these students’ life experiences.

This study offers one of the very few applications in gamification assessment in the context of lean thinking. Furthermore, it integrates the social processing criterion for the first time with the classical two other criteria (motivation and cognitive) used in games education assessment. Finally, it offers new insights for lean thinking game designers for higher education learners.

This paper aims to illustrate the application of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in higher education institutions (HEIs). A real-time case study presented as part of the paper highlights the value which LSS can bring to the higher education system.

The paper commences with an overview and the success of the LSS methodology. The uniqueness of the higher education system for imbibing quality excellence is elaborated, comparing it with the manufacturing industry. Various opportunities for LSS projects in HEIs are then discussed as part of the paper. The last section of the paper elaborates a real-time case study, explaining how LSS was leveraged to improve a university library process.

The study identified the key attributes of the higher education system, which need to be understood for imbibing quality excellence. The study also provided an insight into the upcoming application of LSS and the benefits it can bring to HEIs.

The introduction of LSS into the higher education setup could bring multifold organizational and social benefits

LSS has been successful in the past few decades in the manufacturing and service sector. However, its application in HEIs was very nascent. This study illustrates its importance and application to a highly responsible area of the service sector, for imbibing quality excellence, serving as an excellent resource for researchers and higher education professionals.

Recently, there has been an increasing interest in the concept of Lean; however, the Lean concept in higher education institutions (HEIs) is still not very popular, and these institutions face challenges in implementing Lean activities. The purpose of this study is to identify worldwide experiences of Lean implementation in HEIs and to share best practices of Lean implementation.

The research was conducted by surveying 34 Lean practitioners from HEIs.

This study outlined the importance of the complexity of the community and its processes as the main barrier for Lean implementation in the HEI. The study highlighted that Lean determined positive change in the institutions and that strong leadership, commitment of top management as well as good communication and teamwork were the keys to successful implementation of Lean.

This study provides valuable insights and aspects of implementation and maintenance of Lean initiatives in HEIs around the world; however, a detailed analysis would require a larger number of respondents.

This study proposes that practitioners implementing Lean in HEIs should identify barriers, plan their activities and take into account success factors. According to the results of this study, managers of HEIs should deal with the main barrier – the complexity of the community and its processes. In addition, they should carry out employees’ and Lean facilitators’ training on Lean and ensure that the main success factors such as strong leadership practices, senior management’s commitment, good communication and teamwork are present.

This study adds to the existing knowledge on global experiences of applying Lean in HEIs.