IMPLEMENTATION OF LEAN THINKING IN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS (HEIS)

Competition in today's higher education marketplace is becoming fierce all over the world. Community colleges, four-year colleges, universities, and even higher schools that offer online distance learning courses are all vying for the same students-and the revenue they represent. To find success, institutions of higher education are required to demonstrate that they can offer what others cannot. Naturally, providing a quality, affordable education is of the utmost importance to students and their families. The institutions can also improve their chances of attracting students by the levels of service they offer in every "customer facing interaction"-which often necessitates improvement of their internal work processes. Parents and society in general expect more and more of the HEIs. At the same time continuous budget cuts make a big pressure on HEIs, exposing their need to restructure its organization, efficiently manage resources and be able to respond to external demand. These changes make HEIs strive to implement Lean Service concept and internalize a cultural change in order to stay competitive. Application of Lean concepts in HEIs is relatively new and not much work has been done in this field. Therefore this research was focused on implementation of Lean thinking in HEIs. In this paper three to four variables have been defined which are termed as wastes in Education sector. A questionnaire was developed and responses were sought from both the teachers and students. A comprehensive analysis of the survey led to proposed recommendations of how an HEI could apply this methodology to survive the competition and provide needed quality of education.