Lean in Education

Today’s American educators face unprecedented challenges.  In addition to teaching basic skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic, as they did a century ago, today’s educators are expected to provide a laundry list of additional deliverables using that same (original) system. These new deliverables include technical skills, expanded curriculum offerings, counseling services, and enrichment programs - just to name a few. They must be certified in every area for which they are responsible and are held accountable by federal, state, and local governments for student performance, as well as, for operating within a budget. Our once simple public education system has become a complex, bureaucratic monolith that is often truly beyond the authority or control of the educators who are tasked with administering it.

There is an answer…

Concerned educators and community leaders will be excited to know that a highly successful management approach has been newly revised for the “Education Industry.”  The approach is based on the work of quality guru, W. Edwards Deming, who repeatedly demonstrated that excellence can be achieved at the least cost through process improvement.  

This continuous improvement process, dubbed “Lean” for its ability to do more with less, focuses on improving or removing steps that are not necessary and/or do not add value to the customer*.

* The “customer” is defined as anyone (internally or externally) who receives the benefits of what you do.  For example, this could mean: educator to educator, educator to student, educator to institution, institution to educator, etc.

Interesting Facts

America spends $50 billion annually on education (3rd in the world at the primary level and 5th at the secondary level).

In spite of our educators’ best efforts, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results show that between 67% and 87% of American students cannot perform at the government-mandated competency levels.

WHAT IS LEAN?

Lean is a program of organizational improvement that empowers people to streamline their work processes by identifying, improving, or eliminating the steps that are wasteful, unnecessary, or may even prevent them from doing their job effectively.

HOW DOES LEAN WORK?

Lean is a respect-based process that improves essential trust relationships at the same time that it improves system processes.

Lean is a dynamic and authentic continuous improvement process that promotes a constant state of re-evaluation that asks, “What can be eliminated in the process without reducing value to the customer/end-user?”

Lean is proactive rather than reactive; it seeks to anticipate and prevent rather than fix and resolve.

The net effect of Lean Process Improvement is: increased performance, improved satisfaction, and better stewardship of resources (cost savings).

GDC Total Business Solutions has responded to the challenge of the Education Industry by designing an intensive 10-step program that is intended to meet the unique needs of education.  We use certified Lean Masters to create, administer, and implement this process.

Allow us to come in to give you a preliminary assessment.

 “You can’t afford to wait until it’s too late.”