DOI: 10.1002/qre.
2194
EDITORIAL
Lean six‐sigma in higher education
I recently participated in a conference on Lean Six‐Sigma in
higher education. I think that this is definitely an application
environment whose time has come. Higher education in the
United States is facing a stressful situation not unlike that
faced by the domestic automobile and electronics industries
in the 1980s. Competition from abroad forced these
industries to focus on elimination of defects, reduction of
waste, and improving customer satisfaction with their
products. Six Sigma and Lean arose during that era and
proved invaluable as these industries restored their
competiveness. The successful deployment of these concepts
beyond traditional manufacturing continues today.
Higher education today is facing decreasing resources
from state legislatures (public universities) and donors,
resistance against rising tuition, increasing enrollments in
some institutions and decreasing enrollments in others,
problems with student retention and low completion rates,
increasing operating costs, and increasing pressure to
provide services to the region they serve that support
economic development, extension services, and entrepre-
neurship. Further, higher education institutions have a com-
plex network of stakeholders that include at least the
following:
• Students
• Faculty
• Staff
• Parents
• Potential employers
• Research sponsors
• Taxpayers (public universities)
• Donors
• Other academic departments within the institution
• Other educational institutions
Higher education institutions are large, complex service
organizations, and they have many of the same activities that
all organizations do, and some that are unique to education.
Some examples include
• Purchasing
• Finance and associated business operations
• Financial aid
• Immigration and student visa operations
Qual Reliab Engng Int. 2017;33:935–936. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/qre
• Student admission
• HR activities
• Security
• Contract research management
• Research advancement (proposal development)
• Parking and transit
While there has been some success in deploying lean
six sigma methodology in universities to address problems
in some of these areas there is at present no widespread
use or acceptance of the approach. I think that some of this
can be attributed to a lack of lean six sigma knowledge
and experience within most universities. Even in institu-
tions that have lean six sigma educational or outreach pro-
grams it is rare for the faculty that are involved in these
activities to be asked to participate in addressing internal
problems.
Part of this may be failure to recognize that a problem
exists where lean six sigma is an appropriate approach. A
key part of problem recognition and definition is metrics
(you cannot improve what you do not measure). Inadequate
focus on metrics and lack of key quality indicators for
many business processes can mask a lot of problems. This
can lead to goal misalignment, or performing activities that
are not aligned with the overall direction of the university,
or poor selection of improvement opportunities when prob-
lem‐solving activities are undertaken. Many university pro-
cesses are not well documented, and consequently, there is
a lack of standardization in how these processes are per-
formed. Since people are involved in operating many of
these processes the lack of standardization and documenta-
tion often leads to excessive variability and wasted effort.
Generally, there is a lack of data‐driven management
thinking. Decisions in higher education are not always
data‐driven and the need for reliable metrics and data is
underestimated.
A potential barrier to successful lean six sigma deploy-
ment in educational institutions is too much top‐down
management, that is, not fully utilizing people's talents and
ideas, and relying only on ideas and decisions of individuals
at high levels, ignoring others who may not seem important
academically or from the standpoint of operations. A symp-
tom of this is requiring several approval levels for decisions
that are best made at lower levels. In many educational
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institutions personnel must go through many levels of
approval before an action can be taken.
Among the other barriers that are frequently found in aca-
demic institutions are departmental politics and inter‐depart-
mental acrimony. This can inhibit change and often prevent
dealing with common problems such as duplication of
effort—offering essentially equivalent courses and programs
in different departments or units. Many academicians often
feel that academic freedom gives them the right to “do their
own thing” without regard to potential efficiencies that could
be obtained by cooperating with other units on course and
curriculum issues.
EDITORIAL
While higher education is a challenging environment for
deployment of lean six sigma the problems that these institu-
tions face are challenging. Many of these problems can be
successfully addressed through lean six sigma but it will
require university leadership to buy into the approach much
as the leadership of business organizations such as General
Electric did.
Douglas Montgomery
Editor‐in‐Chief
Quality and Reliability Engineering International