Reserves of teaching staff's productivity growth based on lean technologies

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to find and justify reserves for increasing the productivity of teachers on the example of the Novosibirsk State Technical University. Some of the methods presented in the paper are well-known and are of interest from a practical point of view. These include a survey, observation, experiment, and in-depth interview. Some methods are specific and are more often used by experts in the field of lean manufacturing. The key set of lean tools was the kaizen umbrella, which includes the philosophy of continuous improvement, the method of mapping the value stream, the “five why” method. Diagrams of various purposes are widely used in the article: Ishikawa, Pareto, spaghetti. The main problem solved in this paper is a large number of errors in syllabuses, a long time of their creation and excessive control. The hypothesis about the simultaneous elimination of these shortcomings by automating the process itself was tested. The experiment proved the validity of the hypothesis. The duration of the value creation process during the development of syllabuses was reduced by 15%, and the overall satisfaction of the participants in the process increased by 27.5%. The total savings of the working time fund amounted to 0.5 million man-hours across the entire university, accounting for almost 100 thousand syllabuses.

Keywords

• lean manufacturing
• labor productivity
• syllabuses
• automation of the process