Think Lean!

In the manufacturing industry, it is important to minimize costs and maximize profits. One way of achieving this incorporating lean manufacturing metrics. Minter (2010) wrote in Measuring the Success of Lean that companies cannot just choose one thing to assess. Companies must incorporate many tools into the company's culture in order to enact change. Minter also points out that it takes time to see actual change. Assessment measures must be linked to each other as well as the company's goals and objectives.

Just like assessment in higher education, lean manufacturing starts with general areas that act as standards- for instance, quality, safety, delivery, and cost. Individual objectives are drilled down from these standards and they are measured with some kind of number. The reporting of these results are most common on a quarterly basis by using dashboard technology, which is "real time" results through a web-based system. An example of a quality measurement would be the number of defects found for a certain product. Where assessment in higher education assesses instruction, this type of assessment measures the process. If many defects are found on a certain part of a product, the engineers can go back to see where the most errors are taking place and then they can figure out how to decrease the number of defects.

I have worked for a company who identified "key indicators" that were tracked quarterly and "buy-in" was an issue for workers as well. Most of the employees did not know how they effected them nor how they could effect the outcome of the key indicators. Maybe it was a lack of understanding, but it was difficult to get people to get excited about these results.