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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.

This paper is one of seven in this volume that aims to elaborate different approaches to quality improvement in education. It delineates a methodology called Lean for Education.

The paper presents the origins, theoretical foundations, core concepts and a case study demonstrating an application in US education, specifically dealing with the problem of improving technology supports and services for instructional purposes in a school district system.

An approach borrowed from manufacturing, Lean is aimed at creating and delivering the greatest value to the clients or “customers” in education systems while consuming the fewest resources and eliminating waste. Simultaneously, the method engages the organization in continuous problem solving, learning and making quality improvements with Plan-Do-Check-Act cycles. The core concepts that organize the Lean for Education approach are: continuous improvement and respect for people (Emiliani, 2005).

Few theoretical treatments and demonstration cases are currently available on commonly used models of quality improvement in other fields that might have potential value in improving education systems internationally, such as large grade kindergarten-to-12 education systems in the USA. This paper fills this gap by elucidating one promising approach. The paper also derives value as it permits a comparison of the Lean for Education method with other quality improvement approaches treated in this volume.

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 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.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the causal relationship between Lean practices and team performance. Specifically, the authors tried to demonstrate which practices act as enablers of continuous improvement and waste elimination and what is their impact on team performance.

A survey was carried out in a Higher Education Institution (HEI) in Southern Brazil. The authors obtained a sample of 785 respondents. The data analysis procedures involved confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations modeling.

The results of the research provided support for the positive influence of continuous improvement on waste elimination and of these two practices on team performance. In addition, empirical support was obtained for the effect of leadership support, employee involvement and internal process customers on continuous improvement.

Data collection was carried out online, so we were not able to maintain full control of the research respondents. This research generates relevant insights for decision-makers in the HEI environment, especially concerning Lean practices and team performance. The effects analyzed are even more relevant given the pandemic context.

This study shows how some higher education Lean practices can positively affect continuous improvement and better team performance. The results raise important insights for decision-makers to offer better higher education public services, especially given the context and changes imposed by the pandemic situation.

This paper initiates the discussion about enablers of continuous improvement and waste elimination in HEI and demonstrates their impact on team performance.

Simulation has attracted increasing attention in lean production research as a response to address the complexities of the production environment and difficulties of dealing with changes within a system. Considerable growth of using simulation to facilitate lean acceptance and implementation has been observed across different projects and sectors. However, a thorough review of the development and use of simulation in lean production research is limited.

This study aims to address this gap by reviewing 311 journal papers published in the past two decades on this specific research area and identify the state-of-the-art development and propose future research directions.

The review shows that current studies related to simulation in lean production research can be categorised into two major research streams, namely, simulation assisted lean facilitation and evaluation, and simulation-based lean education and training. Under the first research stream, a total of 19 application areas have been identified which applied both lean and simulation in their studies. The evolution of the simulation techniques used in these studies has been analysed as well. Meanwhile, four types of simulation games have been identified in the stream of simulation-based lean education and training and the impact and applicability of the different simulation and games have been discussed. A framework for engaging lean and simulation is suggested based on the review of the existing studies. The analysis in both streams also highlights the importance of stakeholder engagement and the utilisation of information technologies for future studies.

The findings of this study are expected to provide useful references for the future development and application of simulation in lean production research.

This paper conducted a broad and extensive review of simulation integrated lean production research. An in-depth examination of the retrieved papers was conducted through a structured and quantitative analysis to understand the current body of knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to present various quality constructs, their application, success and shortcomings, in higher education (HE) services.

This paper aims at reviewing the quality constructs in higher education services through a general review. The paper is organised to highlight different quality practices which higher education institutions have followed from 1990s till date. The paper is scoped to discuss about total quality management (TQM), Kaizen, Six Sigma, Lean and Lean Six Sigma (LSS) comparing their value addition and shortcoming in imbibing quality into the higher education. Publications indexed in Scopus database are considered for the review. The focus of the search in the selected publications was to identify the success and shortcomings of various quality constructs in HE services.

The requirement for a quality construct in higher education industry is an important finding of the paper. Alongside this, the reasons behind the shortcoming of quality practices used in higher education system were highlighted. The findings include the opportunities for future research for imbibing quality culture in HE.

The literature discussed in the part of the paper is restricted to TQM, Kaizen, Six Sigma, Lean and LSS. Though the usage of such quality practices in HE originated in 1990s, there is no one robust sustainable practice till date, which proved to be a pacesetter. This paper validates this assertion, which helps both academicians and practitioners with a new perspective.

This paper would serve as an excellent resource for both academicians and practitioners to understand the history of quality which contributed to the improvement in HE services, and how the quality excellence has evolved over the years. The paper concludes with a discussion on opportunities for future research to develop quality frameworks for HE services.

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.