The influence of lean manufacturing over the main results of universities’ performance

This research article assesses the implications of using lean manufacturing for universities’ educational, scientific, financial and economic activities. The research methods include comparative analysis, trend analysis, Wilcoxon T-test, Fisher’s exact test, and correlation analysis. In retrospect, when comparing data on universities that are members of the «Association of Lean Universities», there comes to be a positive effect of lean manufacturing on the indicator «Income from all sources per one scientific and educational worker» and, in less degree, on research and development work (R&D), inflation taken into account. No statistically significant relationship between lean manufacturing and the average Unified State Examination (USE) score of the students admitted to the budgetary form of education was found. A comparative analysis of lean medical schools with their «non-lean» peers showed that lean manufacturing has a positive effect on the growth of R&D, taking inflation into account. Consequently, the use of lean manufacturing allowed universities to maintain average income growth rates per one scientific and educational worker. In addition, lean universities differ from their peers in terms of R&D amount dynamics. The study is to some extent limited by lacking quantitative information on the scale of lean manufacturing implementation, as well as by the dissimilar structure of the lean universities as such, medical schools predominating among them. The research results can be useful for university management and for the lean technologies implementation partners, who are interested in making decisions on the use of lean manufacturing.