Application Of Lean Production Tools In Management Of University Educational Processes

Abstract

The concept of lean production is one of the most frequently used technologies to manage quality at an enterprise. While an increasing number of organizations are applying it, they introduce the principles of this philosophy to achieve a comparative advantage over their main competitors in this or that field. Over the past years, the lean production tools have been applied in the system of education (in particular, at universities) successfully. This article presents an analysis and results of introduction of lean practices at Astrakhan State University (ASU) located in Russia. This paper characterizes the main principles, tools, and techniques of lean production that may be applied to manage quality of a university educational process. It also analyzes types of losses that occur during the production process and identifies their analogues in the process of education. It also determines mechanisms and tools that result in reduced losses and enhanced quality of process management. The article concerns application of principles and tools of lean production in the educational process of ASU, with the discipline “Workshop in Mathematics” as an example. This discipline is intended for first-year-students specializing in Economy & Management. The paper proves that application of lean principles and tools reduces the percentage of expelled students and enhances the quality of education significantly. In general, once ASU has applied the lean production tools, it has identified efficient ways to optimize the process of training proficient specialists who are demanded at the labor market, which also increases its efficiency indicators considerably.