Manajemen | Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji joeb.84.4.194-199
Journal of Education for Business
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
Learning Lean: A Survey of Industry Lean Needs
Gene Fliedner & Kieran Mathieson
To cite this article: Gene Fliedner & Kieran Mathieson (2009) Learning Lean: A Survey
of Industry Lean Needs, Journal of Education for Business, 84:4, 194-199, DOI: 10.3200/
JOEB.84.4.194-199
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JOEB.84.4.194-199
Published online: 07 Aug 2010.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 240
View related articles
Citing articles: 1 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjeb20
Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji]
Date: 11 January 2016, At: 22:52
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:52 11 January 2016
LearningLean:ASurveyofIndustry
LeanNeeds
GENEFLIEDNER
KIERANMATHIESON
OAKLANDUNIVERSITY
ROCHESTER,MICHIGAN
ABSTRACT.
ABSTRACT.Theauthorsexamined
businesspractitioners’preferencesfor
highereducationcurriculadesigningeneralandforwhatgraduatesshouldknow
aboutLean,orwaste-reductionefforts.The
authorsconductedaWeb-basedsurvey
andfoundthatpractitionersarenotasconcernedaboutgraduates’possessingspecific
technicalskillsastheyareaboutthempossessingasystemsviewoforganizationsand
valuestreams.Thesurveyfindingssuggest
severalimplicationsforundergraduateand
graduatebusinessschoolcurriculumdesign,
Leaneducation,andabroadersystems
approachtoprofessionaleducation.
Keywords:businessschoolcurricula
design,Lean
Copyright©2009HeldrefPublications
194
JournalofEducationforBusiness
R
L
ean,orwastereductionefforts,has
been a prominent business strategy
in the past two decades (Ohno, 1988;
Standard & Davis, 1999; Womack,
Jones, & Roos, 1990). Lean practices
are found in service and manufacturingfirms,smallandlargebusiness,and
for-profit and nonprofit organizations
(Ohno). A driving force behind many
Lean initiatives is globalization, which
hasreducedproducers’controloverprices.Cooper(2007)stated,“Intensification
of competitive forces limits the ability
of companies to simply mark up prices
based on cost increases. It has made
cost control, rather than pricing power,
thedrivingforcebehindcorporateprofit
margins and earnings growth” (p. 25).
Businesses must increasingly rely on
cost cutting, waste elimination, productivityimprovement,andqualityenhancement as strategic means to achieving
profit objectives. Lean methods address
these concerns and do work (Clanton,
2004). Furthermore, there is a growing
needforemployeestoparticipateinand
lead the necessary changes to existing
businesscultures,operatingsystems,and
practices to (a) cut costs, (b) eliminate
waste,and(c)improveproductivityand
quality(Drickhamer,2004).
Lean is not widespread in higher
education curricula. Stand-alone Lean
classesarerare.Leanisnormallyfound
inoperationsmanagementorengineering courses, which are not multidisci-
plinaryanddonotattractmanystudents
outsidethetwodisciplines.Consequently,themajorityofstudentsleavehigher
education with little understanding of
Lean. Subsequent to graduation, many
organizations invest a large amount of
time and money to educate and train
employeesinLean(Standard&Davis,
1999). Universities could help companiesavoidsomeofthisexpense.
InAugustof2005,academiciansand
practitioners met at a seminar at Ohio
StateUniversitywheretheycreatedthe
Lean Education Academic Network
(LEAN), a group of university educators seeking to promote Lean education in U.S. higher academia. LEAN
also works to improve Lean education
throughsharedknowledgeandteaching
materials, collaboration, and networkingamongcolleagues.LEANmembers
attheinitialmeetingagreedthatuniversitiesshouldlearnwhatindustrywants
graduatestoknowaboutLean.Industry
participants at the seminar highlighted the importance of academic curricula maintaining a constant awareness
of current industry needs. The present
studyisasteptothatend.
ResearchMethodology
We conducted aWeb-based survey to
betterprovideuniversitieswithanunderstandingofindustryneedsregardingLean.
Inthebeginning,wecirculatedapilotsurveyto15practitionerschosenbyindustry
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:52 11 January 2016
representativesatthefirstLEANmeeting.
Werefinedthesurveyonthebasisoftheir
feedback.WethencreatedtheWeb-based
versionoftherefinedsurvey.
We distributed the refinedWeb-based
survey with the assistance of the Lean
LearningCenterinNovi,Michigan,and
theWebsitewww.Superfactory.com.The
LeanLearningCenterprovidesLeancurricula for industry professional development. It placed a participation invitation
in its electronic newsletter, which was
senttoapproximately2,000opt-ine-mail
addresses. The number of people who
actuallyreadthenewsletterisunknown.
Superfactory.com,whichfocusesonhelping readers achieve manufacturing and
enterprise excellence, invited industry
participantswithapostingonitsWebsite
andanoteinitsmonthlyelectronicnewsletter.Superfactory.comclaimsmorethan
45,000 opt-in subscribers. However, the
numberofpeoplewhosawtheWebpostingornewsletterannouncementwasalso
unknown. The fraction of those readers
whowereinterestedinLean,asopposed
to some other aspect of Superfactory.
com’s coverage, was also unknown.
A 2-week window was allowed for
participantresponses.
Theactualsurveyresponseratetothe
refined survey could not be computed
because of the method of distribution.
However,thereislittledoubtthatitwas
low. In all, we received 45 completed
surveys.Therefore,wedonotclaimthat
thesamplereceivedisrepresentativeof
Lean practitioners. It may be that only
those who were particularly interested
in Lean education responded and that
theyaresomehowdifferentfromothers.
People were able to respond anonymously or were given the option to
provide an e-mail address to receive a
complimentarycopyoftheresults.
For the survey, we used rank order
scores and a 7-point Likert-type scale
rangingfrom1(veryimportant)to7(very
unimportant) to solicit responses from
participants about the degree of importance of a variety of Lean skills, knowledgeareas,concepts,andtools.Weused
parametric and nonparametric statistical
analysestoexamineresponsedifferences.
SurveyDesign
Aftercollectingsomeinitialdemographicdata,thefirstpartofthesurvey
asked participants to rank in order of
most important (low score) to least
important (high score) 10 broadly
identifiedareasofLeanskills,knowledge, and expertise. On the basis of
pilot study results and anecdotal evidence from conversations with practitioners, these 10 areas were chosen
because of their importance as key
building blocks that were desirable
for graduating students to possess to
make a quick contribution to a Lean
program.Rankorderswererequested
because each of these items potentiallyrepresentedasignificantamount
of course content. It may not be possible to include all 10 of these broad
areas in a single, semester-long Lean
course.Therelativenatureoftherankingsshouldbetterenableeducatorsto
prioritizecoursecontent.
In the second part of the survey, we
asked participants about a variety of
skills in three more specific Lean skill
sets relating to particular business disciplines: (a) financial and accounting
skills; (b) human relations skills; and
(c)engineering,operations,andmarketing skills. These more specific Lean
skill sets may be viewed as traditional
programs of study (majors) commonly
foundinhighereducation.Inadditionto
rank ordering, participants were asked
touseafine-grainedLikert-type(FGL)
scaletoindicatetheabsoluteimportance
of Lean skills in each of these three
sets. Traditional coarse-grained Likerttypescalesforcerespondentstochoose
among distinctive anchor points, usuallyfiveorseven.AnFGLscaleallows
participantstoselectvaluesbetweenthe
anchor points. Mathieson and Doane
(2005)foundthatanalysesofdatagatheredusingFGLscalesaremorestatistically powerful than analyses of data
gathered using coarse-grained scales.
Throughoutthepresentstudy,theFGL
scalerangedfrom1(veryimportant)to
7(veryunimportant).
Thefinalportionofthesurveyasked
participantstoindicatetheimportance
ofavarietyofspecificLeanconcepts
and tools commonly examined in
existing college curricula. Both rankings and an FGL scale were used to
solicitparticipantviewsoftheimportance of these specific Lean concepts
andtools.
RESULTS
Because Lean is applicable in small
and large service and manufacturing
organizations, we collected demographic data concerning job titles and
organization sizes. Survey respondents
held a broad range of job positions in
companies of varying sizes and types.
The diversity in job positions included 28 different job titles ranging from
presidents to various types of managersincludingplant,general,production,
inventorycontrol,systems,information
technology, sales, and supply chain.
Other job titles included public informationcoordinatorandunionrepresentative.Therangeofcompanysizesand
typesisshowninTable1.Wereceived
most responses from people in manufacturingcompanies.Nearlyhalfofthe
responses were from people working
for companies with more than 1,000
employees.
The median rank values for the 10
broadly identified areas of Lean skills,
knowledge, and expertise are shown in
Table 2. No area was more important
thanthatofsystemsplanningandthinking. This result is consistent with conversations with practitioners. Companies that have implemented successful
Lean programs have commonly taken
intoaccounttheentireenterprise,from
suppliertocustomer,andeverythingin
between(Yamada&Tracey,2005).
The respondents also perceived the
areas of Human relations skills and
Lean culture to be important, with
median ranks of 3 and 5, respectively.
Lean implementations often change
TABLE1.NumberofResponses,
byTypeandSizeofOrganization
Variable
Numberof
responses
Organizationtype
Service
Manufacturing
Government
Numberofemployees
1–50
51–100
101–150
151–500
501–1,000
>1,000
11
30
4
5
5
0
9
4
22
March/April2009
195
TABLE2.MedianRankValuesofTenBroadlyIdentifiedAreasofLean
Skills,Knowledge,andExpertise
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:52 11 January 2016
Broadlyidentifiedarea
Mdnrankvalue
1. Systemsplanningandthinking
(e.g.,seeingthebusinessasavaluestream)
2. Humanrelationsskills
(e.g.,leadership,changemanagement,teamproblemsolving)
3. Real-worldbusinessknowledgeandexperience
(e.g.,internships,jobexperience)
4. Leanculture
(e.g.,kaizen,plan-do-check-act,5Sorvisualmanagement)
5. Leanprinciples,terminology,andtools
(e.g.,pull,takt,singleminuteexchangeofdie,one-pieceflow)
6. Stabilityandvariancereduction
(e.g.,sixSigma,standardizedwork,talkingpointsmemo)
7. Financialandaccountingknowledge
(e.g.,cashflow,workingcapital,returnonnetassets)
8. Delivery
(e.g.,time-to-marketandlead-timereduction,closedloopdesign)
9. Safety
10. Qualityandothersystemsimprovementmethodologies
(e.g.,MalcolmBaldrige)
companies, threatening (or appearing
to threaten) both corporate culture and
customary ways of conducting work.
Leadership and change-management
skills, therefore, command a premium.
The Society of Automotive Engineers
International (1999) noted that Lean is
primarily about management, workers,
andthetrustthatbindsthetwo,andthat
thesearethemostimportantelementsof
a Lean system. This point underscores
theimportanceofhumanrelationsskills
foranyLeanprogram.
The respondents also viewed the
areasofreal-worldbusinessknowledge
and experience to be important. Practitioners seek potential employees who
can make a quick contribution. It is
commonly argued that learning is best
derivedfrompersonalexperience.This
sentimentisechoedbythemedianrank
valueof3.5fortheareasofreal-world
business knowledge and experience, as
showninTable2.
OnecommonformofwastethatLean
programadministratorstrytoeliminate
istheproductionofdefects.Inlightof
this observation, it is interesting that
the areas of quality and other systemsimprovement methodologies had the
leastimportantranking.
We performed a Friedman rank test
oftheparticipants’rankordersforthese
10 broadly identified areas of Lean to
196
JournalofEducationforBusiness
3.0
3.0
3.5
5.0
5.0
6.0
7.0
7.0
8.0
8.0
ascertain whether the rank values representastatisticaldifference.Thecritical test value was 16.919, using a .05
level of significance with 9 degrees of
freedom.Thecalculatedteststatisticof
85.475indicatedasignificantdegreeof
differences in the relative importance
amongtheseskills.
After being asked about the 10 generalskillareas,respondentswereasked
about three more specific, disciplinerelatedskillsets.TheFGLmeans,standarddeviations,andmedianrankvalues
for the first of these discipline-specific
sets, Lean financial and accounting
skills,areshowninTable3.Bothmetrics,FGLscoremeansandmedianrank
values,demonstratedareasonablelevel
ofconsistency.Scorestandarddeviation
values are reported to allow the reader
toinfertheextentofconsistencyamong
theparticipants’FGLscorevalues.
From the survey results, we ascertainedthatthemostimportantitemwas
enterprise view of money, which had
the lowest mean FGL score and lowest median rank. (Lower values mean
higher importance.) This echoes the
systemsplanningandthinkingconcept.
Theskillratedassecondmostimportant
wastheunderstandingofthetimevalue
ofmoney.
We conducted a one-way analysis of
variance (ANOVA) with the relatively
smalllevelofdifferencesamongtheFGL
scoresoftheseparticularskills.Thecritical value of the test was 2.13, with the
seven skill items and 6 degrees of freedom.WecalculatedFtobe2.70andpto
be.01,indicatingahighdegreeofsignificantdifferencesamongtheseskills.
Similarly,anonparametricFriedman
ranktestoftherankordersfortheseven
financialandaccountingskillswasconductedusinga.05levelofsignificance
to better understand whether the rank
values represented a statistical difference.Thecriticalvalueofthistestwas
12.59.Wecalculatedtheteststatisticto
be13.96,indicatingasignificantdegree
of difference among the participants’
rankingsforthisskillset.Theseresults
suggestthatsurveyparticipantsregardedtheenterpriseviewofmoneyasthe
most important skill and activity-based
costingastheleastimportant.
The results for the second of the
three discipline-related skill sets,
TABLE3.LeanFinancialandAccountingSkills
Skill
Enterprise(totalcompany)viewofmoney
Timevalueofmoney
Firstin,firstout
Cashflow
Workingcapital
Returnonnetassets
Activity-basedcosting
Scalepoint
M
SD
Mdnrankvalue
2.51
2.63
2.70
2.98
3.08
3.11
3.25
0.81
1.00
1.21
1.09
0.78
1.25
1.49
3
3
4
4
5
4
6
Note.Responsesarefroma7-point,fine-grainedLikert-typescalerangingfrom1(mostimportant)to7(leastimportant).
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:52 11 January 2016
human relations skills, are shown in
Table 4. Again, there was much consistency between the participants’
rank order and FGL scores. Leadership skills was ranked as the most
importantitembyboththeFGLmean
score and median rank value. Teamwork skills was next on both metrics. The items basic problem solving
skills,teamproblemsolvingskills,and
change management followed closely.
Negotiationandconflictresolutionwas
seenastheleastimportantiteminthis
skill set when measured by the FGL
andmedianrankings.
We calculated a one-way ANOVA
among the FGL scores of these eight
particular skills. The critical value of
the test was 2.04 for the 7 degrees of
freedom, F was calculated to be 1.98
(p > .05, ns). Range truncation may
explain this because two of the FGL
score means were within 1 standard
deviation,andseveralotherswereclose
to 1 standard deviation of the end of
thescale.
We conducted a Friedman rank test
ofthemedianrankordersfortheeight
skills using a .05 level of significance.
Thecriticalvalueofthistestwas14.07.
We calculated the test statistic to be
38.11,indicatingasignificantdegreeof
differenceamongtheparticipants’rankingsforthisskillset.
Overall, the evidence suggests that
there are significant differences in the
ratings, so that leadership skills were
perceived to be more important than
negotiation and conflict resolution. It
is interesting that the skill viewed as
least important in this set (negotiation
and conflict resolution, with a mean
FGL score of 2.17 [SD = 0.87]) was
perceivedtobemoreimportantthanthe
mostimportantskillinthefinancialand
accountingskillsset(enterpriseviewof
money,withameanFGLscoreof2.51
[SD=0.81]).
TheFGLmeans,standarddeviations,
andmedianrankvaluesforthethirddiscipline-related skill set—engineering,
operations, and marketing skills—are
showninTable5.Thereweredifferences in the FGL scores and rank results.
However,iftheskillsaresplitintotwo
roughly equal-sized sets (high importance and low importance), then skills
rated as high importance by the FGL
TABLE4.HumanRelationsSkills
Skill
Leadership
Teamwork
Basicproblemsolving
Teamproblemsolving
Changemanagement
Interpersonal
Logicalthinking
Negotiationandconflict
resolution
Scalepoint
M
SD
Mdnrankvalue
1.67
1.69
1.77
1.79
1.79
1.88
1.89
2.17
0.62
0.82
0.71
0.90
0.69
0.66
0.67
0.87
2.00
3.00
4.50
4.75
5.50
4.00
5.00
6.00
Note.Responsesarefroma7-point,fine-grainedLikert-typescalerangingfrom1(mostimportant)to7(leastimportant).
TABLE5.Engineering,Operations,andMarketingSkills
Skill
Standardization
Varianceorvariancereduction
Abilitytoassessdeliveredvaluetocustomer
Processthinking
Translatingcustomerrequirementsinto
specifications
Processdesign
Leanproductdesignanddevelopmenttime
Cellularlayouts
Generalstatisticalanalysis
Leanproductdesignanddevelopmentcosts
Debugging
Automation
Statisticalprocesscontrol
Pilottesting
Prototyping
Scalepoint
M
SD
Mdnrankvalue
1.76
1.94
2.10
2.19
2.20
0.65
0.59
0.78
0.83
0.96
4.50
7.50
5.00
2.50
3.75
2.49
2.50
2.52
2.62
2.66
2.73
2.77
2.81
2.88
3.13
0.99
1.00
0.96
0.86
0.87
0.95
1.19
1.05
0.93
0.98
5.50
6.50
13.00
11.00
7.50
10.00
10.00
12.00
10.00
11.00
Note.Responsesarefroma7-point,fine-grainedLikert-typescalerangingfrom1(mostimportant)to7(leastimportant).
scales were also rated as high importancebytherankvalues,andskillsrated
aslowimportancebytheFGLwerealso
ratedaslowimportancebytherankvalues.Standardizationreceivedthelowest
mean FGL rating, followed by variance reduction. The item most similar
to a systems view, process thinking,
receivedthelowestmedianranking,followed by translating customer requirementsintospecifications.Weconducted
an ANOVA among the FGL scores of
theseskills.Thecriticalvalueofthetest
was 1.71, with the 15 skill items comprising the comparative analysis and
14 degrees of freedom. We calculated
F to be 6.79 (p
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
Learning Lean: A Survey of Industry Lean Needs
Gene Fliedner & Kieran Mathieson
To cite this article: Gene Fliedner & Kieran Mathieson (2009) Learning Lean: A Survey
of Industry Lean Needs, Journal of Education for Business, 84:4, 194-199, DOI: 10.3200/
JOEB.84.4.194-199
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JOEB.84.4.194-199
Published online: 07 Aug 2010.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 240
View related articles
Citing articles: 1 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjeb20
Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji]
Date: 11 January 2016, At: 22:52
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:52 11 January 2016
LearningLean:ASurveyofIndustry
LeanNeeds
GENEFLIEDNER
KIERANMATHIESON
OAKLANDUNIVERSITY
ROCHESTER,MICHIGAN
ABSTRACT.
ABSTRACT.Theauthorsexamined
businesspractitioners’preferencesfor
highereducationcurriculadesigningeneralandforwhatgraduatesshouldknow
aboutLean,orwaste-reductionefforts.The
authorsconductedaWeb-basedsurvey
andfoundthatpractitionersarenotasconcernedaboutgraduates’possessingspecific
technicalskillsastheyareaboutthempossessingasystemsviewoforganizationsand
valuestreams.Thesurveyfindingssuggest
severalimplicationsforundergraduateand
graduatebusinessschoolcurriculumdesign,
Leaneducation,andabroadersystems
approachtoprofessionaleducation.
Keywords:businessschoolcurricula
design,Lean
Copyright©2009HeldrefPublications
194
JournalofEducationforBusiness
R
L
ean,orwastereductionefforts,has
been a prominent business strategy
in the past two decades (Ohno, 1988;
Standard & Davis, 1999; Womack,
Jones, & Roos, 1990). Lean practices
are found in service and manufacturingfirms,smallandlargebusiness,and
for-profit and nonprofit organizations
(Ohno). A driving force behind many
Lean initiatives is globalization, which
hasreducedproducers’controloverprices.Cooper(2007)stated,“Intensification
of competitive forces limits the ability
of companies to simply mark up prices
based on cost increases. It has made
cost control, rather than pricing power,
thedrivingforcebehindcorporateprofit
margins and earnings growth” (p. 25).
Businesses must increasingly rely on
cost cutting, waste elimination, productivityimprovement,andqualityenhancement as strategic means to achieving
profit objectives. Lean methods address
these concerns and do work (Clanton,
2004). Furthermore, there is a growing
needforemployeestoparticipateinand
lead the necessary changes to existing
businesscultures,operatingsystems,and
practices to (a) cut costs, (b) eliminate
waste,and(c)improveproductivityand
quality(Drickhamer,2004).
Lean is not widespread in higher
education curricula. Stand-alone Lean
classesarerare.Leanisnormallyfound
inoperationsmanagementorengineering courses, which are not multidisci-
plinaryanddonotattractmanystudents
outsidethetwodisciplines.Consequently,themajorityofstudentsleavehigher
education with little understanding of
Lean. Subsequent to graduation, many
organizations invest a large amount of
time and money to educate and train
employeesinLean(Standard&Davis,
1999). Universities could help companiesavoidsomeofthisexpense.
InAugustof2005,academiciansand
practitioners met at a seminar at Ohio
StateUniversitywheretheycreatedthe
Lean Education Academic Network
(LEAN), a group of university educators seeking to promote Lean education in U.S. higher academia. LEAN
also works to improve Lean education
throughsharedknowledgeandteaching
materials, collaboration, and networkingamongcolleagues.LEANmembers
attheinitialmeetingagreedthatuniversitiesshouldlearnwhatindustrywants
graduatestoknowaboutLean.Industry
participants at the seminar highlighted the importance of academic curricula maintaining a constant awareness
of current industry needs. The present
studyisasteptothatend.
ResearchMethodology
We conducted aWeb-based survey to
betterprovideuniversitieswithanunderstandingofindustryneedsregardingLean.
Inthebeginning,wecirculatedapilotsurveyto15practitionerschosenbyindustry
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:52 11 January 2016
representativesatthefirstLEANmeeting.
Werefinedthesurveyonthebasisoftheir
feedback.WethencreatedtheWeb-based
versionoftherefinedsurvey.
We distributed the refinedWeb-based
survey with the assistance of the Lean
LearningCenterinNovi,Michigan,and
theWebsitewww.Superfactory.com.The
LeanLearningCenterprovidesLeancurricula for industry professional development. It placed a participation invitation
in its electronic newsletter, which was
senttoapproximately2,000opt-ine-mail
addresses. The number of people who
actuallyreadthenewsletterisunknown.
Superfactory.com,whichfocusesonhelping readers achieve manufacturing and
enterprise excellence, invited industry
participantswithapostingonitsWebsite
andanoteinitsmonthlyelectronicnewsletter.Superfactory.comclaimsmorethan
45,000 opt-in subscribers. However, the
numberofpeoplewhosawtheWebpostingornewsletterannouncementwasalso
unknown. The fraction of those readers
whowereinterestedinLean,asopposed
to some other aspect of Superfactory.
com’s coverage, was also unknown.
A 2-week window was allowed for
participantresponses.
Theactualsurveyresponseratetothe
refined survey could not be computed
because of the method of distribution.
However,thereislittledoubtthatitwas
low. In all, we received 45 completed
surveys.Therefore,wedonotclaimthat
thesamplereceivedisrepresentativeof
Lean practitioners. It may be that only
those who were particularly interested
in Lean education responded and that
theyaresomehowdifferentfromothers.
People were able to respond anonymously or were given the option to
provide an e-mail address to receive a
complimentarycopyoftheresults.
For the survey, we used rank order
scores and a 7-point Likert-type scale
rangingfrom1(veryimportant)to7(very
unimportant) to solicit responses from
participants about the degree of importance of a variety of Lean skills, knowledgeareas,concepts,andtools.Weused
parametric and nonparametric statistical
analysestoexamineresponsedifferences.
SurveyDesign
Aftercollectingsomeinitialdemographicdata,thefirstpartofthesurvey
asked participants to rank in order of
most important (low score) to least
important (high score) 10 broadly
identifiedareasofLeanskills,knowledge, and expertise. On the basis of
pilot study results and anecdotal evidence from conversations with practitioners, these 10 areas were chosen
because of their importance as key
building blocks that were desirable
for graduating students to possess to
make a quick contribution to a Lean
program.Rankorderswererequested
because each of these items potentiallyrepresentedasignificantamount
of course content. It may not be possible to include all 10 of these broad
areas in a single, semester-long Lean
course.Therelativenatureoftherankingsshouldbetterenableeducatorsto
prioritizecoursecontent.
In the second part of the survey, we
asked participants about a variety of
skills in three more specific Lean skill
sets relating to particular business disciplines: (a) financial and accounting
skills; (b) human relations skills; and
(c)engineering,operations,andmarketing skills. These more specific Lean
skill sets may be viewed as traditional
programs of study (majors) commonly
foundinhighereducation.Inadditionto
rank ordering, participants were asked
touseafine-grainedLikert-type(FGL)
scaletoindicatetheabsoluteimportance
of Lean skills in each of these three
sets. Traditional coarse-grained Likerttypescalesforcerespondentstochoose
among distinctive anchor points, usuallyfiveorseven.AnFGLscaleallows
participantstoselectvaluesbetweenthe
anchor points. Mathieson and Doane
(2005)foundthatanalysesofdatagatheredusingFGLscalesaremorestatistically powerful than analyses of data
gathered using coarse-grained scales.
Throughoutthepresentstudy,theFGL
scalerangedfrom1(veryimportant)to
7(veryunimportant).
Thefinalportionofthesurveyasked
participantstoindicatetheimportance
ofavarietyofspecificLeanconcepts
and tools commonly examined in
existing college curricula. Both rankings and an FGL scale were used to
solicitparticipantviewsoftheimportance of these specific Lean concepts
andtools.
RESULTS
Because Lean is applicable in small
and large service and manufacturing
organizations, we collected demographic data concerning job titles and
organization sizes. Survey respondents
held a broad range of job positions in
companies of varying sizes and types.
The diversity in job positions included 28 different job titles ranging from
presidents to various types of managersincludingplant,general,production,
inventorycontrol,systems,information
technology, sales, and supply chain.
Other job titles included public informationcoordinatorandunionrepresentative.Therangeofcompanysizesand
typesisshowninTable1.Wereceived
most responses from people in manufacturingcompanies.Nearlyhalfofthe
responses were from people working
for companies with more than 1,000
employees.
The median rank values for the 10
broadly identified areas of Lean skills,
knowledge, and expertise are shown in
Table 2. No area was more important
thanthatofsystemsplanningandthinking. This result is consistent with conversations with practitioners. Companies that have implemented successful
Lean programs have commonly taken
intoaccounttheentireenterprise,from
suppliertocustomer,andeverythingin
between(Yamada&Tracey,2005).
The respondents also perceived the
areas of Human relations skills and
Lean culture to be important, with
median ranks of 3 and 5, respectively.
Lean implementations often change
TABLE1.NumberofResponses,
byTypeandSizeofOrganization
Variable
Numberof
responses
Organizationtype
Service
Manufacturing
Government
Numberofemployees
1–50
51–100
101–150
151–500
501–1,000
>1,000
11
30
4
5
5
0
9
4
22
March/April2009
195
TABLE2.MedianRankValuesofTenBroadlyIdentifiedAreasofLean
Skills,Knowledge,andExpertise
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Broadlyidentifiedarea
Mdnrankvalue
1. Systemsplanningandthinking
(e.g.,seeingthebusinessasavaluestream)
2. Humanrelationsskills
(e.g.,leadership,changemanagement,teamproblemsolving)
3. Real-worldbusinessknowledgeandexperience
(e.g.,internships,jobexperience)
4. Leanculture
(e.g.,kaizen,plan-do-check-act,5Sorvisualmanagement)
5. Leanprinciples,terminology,andtools
(e.g.,pull,takt,singleminuteexchangeofdie,one-pieceflow)
6. Stabilityandvariancereduction
(e.g.,sixSigma,standardizedwork,talkingpointsmemo)
7. Financialandaccountingknowledge
(e.g.,cashflow,workingcapital,returnonnetassets)
8. Delivery
(e.g.,time-to-marketandlead-timereduction,closedloopdesign)
9. Safety
10. Qualityandothersystemsimprovementmethodologies
(e.g.,MalcolmBaldrige)
companies, threatening (or appearing
to threaten) both corporate culture and
customary ways of conducting work.
Leadership and change-management
skills, therefore, command a premium.
The Society of Automotive Engineers
International (1999) noted that Lean is
primarily about management, workers,
andthetrustthatbindsthetwo,andthat
thesearethemostimportantelementsof
a Lean system. This point underscores
theimportanceofhumanrelationsskills
foranyLeanprogram.
The respondents also viewed the
areasofreal-worldbusinessknowledge
and experience to be important. Practitioners seek potential employees who
can make a quick contribution. It is
commonly argued that learning is best
derivedfrompersonalexperience.This
sentimentisechoedbythemedianrank
valueof3.5fortheareasofreal-world
business knowledge and experience, as
showninTable2.
OnecommonformofwastethatLean
programadministratorstrytoeliminate
istheproductionofdefects.Inlightof
this observation, it is interesting that
the areas of quality and other systemsimprovement methodologies had the
leastimportantranking.
We performed a Friedman rank test
oftheparticipants’rankordersforthese
10 broadly identified areas of Lean to
196
JournalofEducationforBusiness
3.0
3.0
3.5
5.0
5.0
6.0
7.0
7.0
8.0
8.0
ascertain whether the rank values representastatisticaldifference.Thecritical test value was 16.919, using a .05
level of significance with 9 degrees of
freedom.Thecalculatedteststatisticof
85.475indicatedasignificantdegreeof
differences in the relative importance
amongtheseskills.
After being asked about the 10 generalskillareas,respondentswereasked
about three more specific, disciplinerelatedskillsets.TheFGLmeans,standarddeviations,andmedianrankvalues
for the first of these discipline-specific
sets, Lean financial and accounting
skills,areshowninTable3.Bothmetrics,FGLscoremeansandmedianrank
values,demonstratedareasonablelevel
ofconsistency.Scorestandarddeviation
values are reported to allow the reader
toinfertheextentofconsistencyamong
theparticipants’FGLscorevalues.
From the survey results, we ascertainedthatthemostimportantitemwas
enterprise view of money, which had
the lowest mean FGL score and lowest median rank. (Lower values mean
higher importance.) This echoes the
systemsplanningandthinkingconcept.
Theskillratedassecondmostimportant
wastheunderstandingofthetimevalue
ofmoney.
We conducted a one-way analysis of
variance (ANOVA) with the relatively
smalllevelofdifferencesamongtheFGL
scoresoftheseparticularskills.Thecritical value of the test was 2.13, with the
seven skill items and 6 degrees of freedom.WecalculatedFtobe2.70andpto
be.01,indicatingahighdegreeofsignificantdifferencesamongtheseskills.
Similarly,anonparametricFriedman
ranktestoftherankordersfortheseven
financialandaccountingskillswasconductedusinga.05levelofsignificance
to better understand whether the rank
values represented a statistical difference.Thecriticalvalueofthistestwas
12.59.Wecalculatedtheteststatisticto
be13.96,indicatingasignificantdegree
of difference among the participants’
rankingsforthisskillset.Theseresults
suggestthatsurveyparticipantsregardedtheenterpriseviewofmoneyasthe
most important skill and activity-based
costingastheleastimportant.
The results for the second of the
three discipline-related skill sets,
TABLE3.LeanFinancialandAccountingSkills
Skill
Enterprise(totalcompany)viewofmoney
Timevalueofmoney
Firstin,firstout
Cashflow
Workingcapital
Returnonnetassets
Activity-basedcosting
Scalepoint
M
SD
Mdnrankvalue
2.51
2.63
2.70
2.98
3.08
3.11
3.25
0.81
1.00
1.21
1.09
0.78
1.25
1.49
3
3
4
4
5
4
6
Note.Responsesarefroma7-point,fine-grainedLikert-typescalerangingfrom1(mostimportant)to7(leastimportant).
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:52 11 January 2016
human relations skills, are shown in
Table 4. Again, there was much consistency between the participants’
rank order and FGL scores. Leadership skills was ranked as the most
importantitembyboththeFGLmean
score and median rank value. Teamwork skills was next on both metrics. The items basic problem solving
skills,teamproblemsolvingskills,and
change management followed closely.
Negotiationandconflictresolutionwas
seenastheleastimportantiteminthis
skill set when measured by the FGL
andmedianrankings.
We calculated a one-way ANOVA
among the FGL scores of these eight
particular skills. The critical value of
the test was 2.04 for the 7 degrees of
freedom, F was calculated to be 1.98
(p > .05, ns). Range truncation may
explain this because two of the FGL
score means were within 1 standard
deviation,andseveralotherswereclose
to 1 standard deviation of the end of
thescale.
We conducted a Friedman rank test
ofthemedianrankordersfortheeight
skills using a .05 level of significance.
Thecriticalvalueofthistestwas14.07.
We calculated the test statistic to be
38.11,indicatingasignificantdegreeof
differenceamongtheparticipants’rankingsforthisskillset.
Overall, the evidence suggests that
there are significant differences in the
ratings, so that leadership skills were
perceived to be more important than
negotiation and conflict resolution. It
is interesting that the skill viewed as
least important in this set (negotiation
and conflict resolution, with a mean
FGL score of 2.17 [SD = 0.87]) was
perceivedtobemoreimportantthanthe
mostimportantskillinthefinancialand
accountingskillsset(enterpriseviewof
money,withameanFGLscoreof2.51
[SD=0.81]).
TheFGLmeans,standarddeviations,
andmedianrankvaluesforthethirddiscipline-related skill set—engineering,
operations, and marketing skills—are
showninTable5.Thereweredifferences in the FGL scores and rank results.
However,iftheskillsaresplitintotwo
roughly equal-sized sets (high importance and low importance), then skills
rated as high importance by the FGL
TABLE4.HumanRelationsSkills
Skill
Leadership
Teamwork
Basicproblemsolving
Teamproblemsolving
Changemanagement
Interpersonal
Logicalthinking
Negotiationandconflict
resolution
Scalepoint
M
SD
Mdnrankvalue
1.67
1.69
1.77
1.79
1.79
1.88
1.89
2.17
0.62
0.82
0.71
0.90
0.69
0.66
0.67
0.87
2.00
3.00
4.50
4.75
5.50
4.00
5.00
6.00
Note.Responsesarefroma7-point,fine-grainedLikert-typescalerangingfrom1(mostimportant)to7(leastimportant).
TABLE5.Engineering,Operations,andMarketingSkills
Skill
Standardization
Varianceorvariancereduction
Abilitytoassessdeliveredvaluetocustomer
Processthinking
Translatingcustomerrequirementsinto
specifications
Processdesign
Leanproductdesignanddevelopmenttime
Cellularlayouts
Generalstatisticalanalysis
Leanproductdesignanddevelopmentcosts
Debugging
Automation
Statisticalprocesscontrol
Pilottesting
Prototyping
Scalepoint
M
SD
Mdnrankvalue
1.76
1.94
2.10
2.19
2.20
0.65
0.59
0.78
0.83
0.96
4.50
7.50
5.00
2.50
3.75
2.49
2.50
2.52
2.62
2.66
2.73
2.77
2.81
2.88
3.13
0.99
1.00
0.96
0.86
0.87
0.95
1.19
1.05
0.93
0.98
5.50
6.50
13.00
11.00
7.50
10.00
10.00
12.00
10.00
11.00
Note.Responsesarefroma7-point,fine-grainedLikert-typescalerangingfrom1(mostimportant)to7(leastimportant).
scales were also rated as high importancebytherankvalues,andskillsrated
aslowimportancebytheFGLwerealso
ratedaslowimportancebytherankvalues.Standardizationreceivedthelowest
mean FGL rating, followed by variance reduction. The item most similar
to a systems view, process thinking,
receivedthelowestmedianranking,followed by translating customer requirementsintospecifications.Weconducted
an ANOVA among the FGL scores of
theseskills.Thecriticalvalueofthetest
was 1.71, with the 15 skill items comprising the comparative analysis and
14 degrees of freedom. We calculated
F to be 6.79 (p