Making campus safety more efficient
A government code regulating CCTV stimulated Aston University to take a fresh look at their surveillance technology. Mark Sutton explains how complying with the surveillance commissioner's code has resulted in efficiencies and savings.
How to create a lean team
Institutions implementing a lean strategy need to think carefully about who will support it. The University of Sheffield’s Rachel McAssey explains some of the elements that make up a successful lean team.
Learning lean in a lean way
Higher education professionals from across the world met in Stirling last month to discuss approaches to lean. Vincent Wiegel shares his reflections of an event attracting a growing number of delegates each year.
Improving Macquarie University with lean
Case study: An Australian university has been applying lean to streamline and improve its processes, discovering along the way how big a change the methodology can effect in the organisation's culture.
Lean education is here to stay – and going global
Inspired by a system identified at Toyota, the Lean approach to improving the processes of production is now influencing higher education, with professionals seeking to implement Lean in their institutions meeting in Canada last month to share experiences. Dr Vincent Wiegel reports on the event.
Lean leadership: five steps to get the best from yourself and others
How do you create the right conditions for lean to flourish? The University of Strathclyde’s John Hogg outlines five key behaviours that will help to foster a lean approach in higher education.
How lean is making a counselling service work better for students
The Process Improvement Unit at the University of Sheffield was established in June 2012 to help the university improve its business processes. Rachel McAssey describes one of the unit’s big success, which is having a real impact on the student experience - and winning awards.
Fin Miller: making St Andrews leaner and fitter
Developed to cut out waste in car production in post-war Japan, the Lean method has been used at the University of St Andrews for more than a decade. We caught up with St Andrew’s change manager Fin Miller to find out how it works in practice.
What lean could mean for you
Do you develop a cold sweat whenever you hear the term “lean”? Our series of blogposts about lean methodology aims to change all, that starting with an introduction to the philosophy of lean by Edinburgh Napier’s Steve Yorkstone.
How to convince the process mapping sceptics
Encouraging people to try different ways of working is a big problem for many HE institutions. While taking advantage of a powerful resource, the continuous improvement team at the University of Winchester also learned some valuable lessons about bringing reluctant staff on board.
