2014 Our Lean journey -findings and recommendations when implementing Lean in Adult VET Organizations

www.leanvet.eu

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Introduction ................................................................................................................. 2

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LeanVET ..................................................................................................................... 3 2.1

Partners of LeanVET ........................................................................................................ 3

2.1.1

The Adult Education Authority in Gothenburg / Sweden ....................................... 3

2.1.2

Alfa-college / The Netherlands ................................................................................ 3

2.1.3

Tampere Adult Education Centre (TAKK) / Finland ................................................. 5

2.1.4

City College Brighton and Hove / United Kingdom ................................................. 6

2.1.5

CPH WEST / Denmark .............................................................................................. 7

2.2

Design of the project ....................................................................................................... 8

2.2.1

Lean Academy ......................................................................................................... 8

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What Lean is to us ..................................................................................................... 10

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Stories ........................................................................................................................ 12

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4.1

The Adult Education Authority in Gothenburg / Sweden ............................................. 12

4.2

Alfa-College / The Netherlands ..................................................................................... 14

4.3

TAKK / Finland ............................................................................................................... 17

4.4

City College Brighton and Hove / United Kingdom ....................................................... 19

4.5

CPH WEST / Denmark .................................................................................................... 21

Findings and recommendations ................................................................................. 24 5.1

Management responses of the Action plans................................................................. 24

5.2

Findings and recommendations .................................................................................... 25

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Literature ................................................................................................................... 31

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Contact ....................................................................................................................... 32

www.leanvet.eu This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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1 Introduction The starting point in Gothenburg when we took the initiative to search for partners in Brussels was based on an idea. We wanted to investigate how we could improve the possibilities for lifelong learning by developing a model for vocational education that offered shortcuts to the goal for both students and employers. The idea was named Flexication and our way to create it was related to the basic ideas of Lean. We were curious to know if other cities and organizations in Europe had similar ideas or maybe already acted in this direction. Our call for partners was sent out through our office in Brussels and the response was huge. No one of those who replied worked in this way but many liked our idea of learning more about the Lean strategy. We selected and contacted the most interesting potential partners which were City College Brighton and Hove in United Kingdom, Alfa College in the Netherlands, CPH WEST in Denmark and TAKK in Finland. We then met for a first meeting in Gothenburg where we decided to make a common application to the Leonardo da Vinci programme. The project was named LeanVET and luckily our application was approved. We did not know then how the journey towards our goals would look like but when we now have reached the end of the project we can see that Lean as a strategy have had great impact in all participating organizations. The similarities and differences between our organizations have taught us a lot and it has given us vital perspectives, which of course is the very idea of the exchange between countries in Europe. In addition to the professional exchange that we have carried out we have also met new friends. My hope is that our contact will maintain and be refined in the future. I finally want to thank all of you who have participated in LeanVET for good cooperation during the project. Jan Elftorp Director The Adult Education Authority in Gothenburg

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2 LeanVET The purpose of the LeanVET project is to investigate the usefulness of the Lean strategies and methodologies for Vocational Education and Training (VET) organizations. The project partners represent VET organizations in the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, United Kingdom and Sweden. 2.1

Partners of LeanVET

2.1.1 The Adult Education Authority in Gothenburg / Sweden The Adult Education Authority (VUF) is responsible for all municipal adult education in Gothenburg; basic education, upper secondary school, vocational education and training (VET), Swedish for immigrants and education for persons with disabilities. It is a local public authority, funded by the City of Gothenburg and the government. VUF has about 90 staff members (except school staff) and 25,000 students. VUF does not run the courses itself. All education is procured from 17 different providers. The main responsibility is to plan and deliver adult education for the citizens. Also, VUF has a neutral guidance center free of charge for future students. Why participating in LeanVET? By participating in LeanVET we wanted to investigate how we could facilitate the development of our new educational concept (Flexication) of combining different levels in the education system by using the Lean strategy and methodologies. The Adult Education Authority´s contribution to LeanVET Flexication is the focal point and it is a project that will test if there are benefits for employers, participating students and the school system at a meta-level when combining different levels in the system of adult learning. 2.1.2 Alfa-college / The Netherlands Alfa-college is a Regionaal Opleidingen Centrum (Dutch: ROC) for vocational education and training (VET). ROC provides a coherent range of courses enabling young people and adults to gain qualifications for the job market or for further education. Alfa-college has over 12,000 students in the age range of 16 – 60 and 1,000 members of staff at campuses in the northeast of the Netherlands. The department of non-vocational adult education and training participates in the project LeanVET. This department provides all kinds of education and training for Dutch low literate learners and migrant learners. In 1996 the current Regional Educational Centers were given the licenses and obligation to organize adult non-vocational education with the aim of equipping the inhabitants of the cities, towns and villages with skills for language, numeracy, digital knowledge, social progress, social activation, participating in society. The target groups are both Dutch low-literate citizens but also migrant learners.

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We offer a wide range of courses such as: • Dutch language, literacy and numeracy for native speakers • Dutch language, literacy and numeracy for immigrants • Integration courses (preparation for integration exams) • Social activation/participation/re-integration towards the labor market • Integrated courses of language and vocational training (level 1/2 for immigrants) • Preparation courses of language and secondary education towards higher vocational training and university for immigrants The department of Adult Education works for 13 municipalities in the north eastern part of the Netherlands. In the Netherlands funding for basic adult education is organized in different ways. The basic funding for adult education from the ministry of education goes to the municipalities that have the obligation to spend this budget at the departments for adult education on VET-schools. Other funding comes from the social services of the municipalities, companies, projects and individual learners. From January 2015 onward the legal obligation to spend educational budgets of municipalities on VET-schools is cancelled. The ministry of education decided that courses that are related to adult education but do not lead to vocational qualification will be on the open market from 1st of January onward. This reduction scenario gives both municipalities and ROC’s the opportunity to prepare themselves for the changing situation. The other percentages (25% in 2015, 50% in 2016, 75% in 2017, 100% in 2018) will be on the open market from 1st of January 2015 and the municipalities will organize some sort of tenders and will invite other organizations too, to present educational plans and proposals. Why participating in LeanVET? Our motivation to participate in LeanVET was to see what advantages our organization could get from implementing Lean tools, by improving our administrative processes regarding student registration and financial procedures. Within our curriculum we hoped to make courses more Lean by getting rid of time waste, avoiding duplicating work and by helping students reach results faster. Alfa-College´s contribution to LeanVET The main goal was to develop a career model for adult students, workers, job seekers (nationals or those from other countries) and the unemployed in the northern region of the Netherlands using a Lean approach in VET, broking (mediation) and APL and various methods of formal, informal and non-formal learning in order to encourage a quicker start-up in the labor market without waste of time. Our aim was to change the consecutive model consisting of first language teaching and then activation into combined programs, as soon as the level of understanding of the Dutch language permitted us to add these extra training elements.

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2.1.3 Tampere Adult Education Centre (TAKK) / Finland TAKK - Tampere Adult Education Centre is one of the biggest Adult Education Centres in Finland and a provider of a wide range of vocational course programmes for more than 16 000 students yearly. The personnel of TAKK is about 300, including trainers, work life developers, project workers, secretary as well as other administrative and supporting staff. The course programmes that TAKK provides include vocational basic, further and supplementary education from several vocational fields, competence based qualifications and short courses according to the needs of the work life. The policy consists of up-todate learning methods and environments, specialized customer services and expert knowledge in our fields of adult education. During recent years a great efforts have been made in developing models of work life co-operation both in training and other services, and also in developing counseling services for adults. Our mission is that TAKK promotes the success of its customers in a sustainable way by offering both education and development services – domestically as well as internationally. Why participating in LeanVET? Lean was not totally strange to us in TAKK when we started the project. We had a separate department for work life services where a few specialists had studied some Lean theory and methods and used these skills while serving our customer companies. When the coordinator of LeanVET- project offered us a possibility to join it and start to test how Lean could be implemented and used also in a training organization, we found the idea most interesting. We thought that, through this kind of development work, we could get a deeper understanding of Lean as a tool to develop both our own organization and processes and new services for our customer companies. We also hoped that we would learn more and develop our Lean competence from the Lean academy, which was included in the project plan, and also from our partners from other countries. We had a strong feeling that Lean is something for the future, and that we would get some benefit from being a sort of pioneer in the field of training and education, where Lean is not much heard of yet. TAKK´s contribution to LeanVET The first objective of our work was to develop and sharpen the model of TAKK’s company services and the tools included in it with the help of the Lean academy of the project. This means that the Lean methodology was meant to be tested, and if successful, implemented in this part of the VET-process, i.e. the co-operation with the companies, while offering our training and development services both to our students and company customers. The purpose of this Lean testing was to find out the most effective way - and a reciprocal way - of cooperating with company customers, to strengthen the flow of information and to guarantee a fluent and most effective service process to the customers, both students and companies. The second aim of our work was to share and disseminate the company services and cooperation model of TAKK to the other partner organisations of the project. Due to organizational and strategic changes in TAKK, the target customer group of TAKK changed during the first year of the project, and thus the main target groups of 5

TAKK’s company services are now start up’s, entrepreneurs and micro and SME’s, and not that much emphasize is put on large companies any more. For this reason also the contents of our work changed slightly, as the model of company service is now more concentrated on processes of entrepreneurship training, support and services and services offered to micro and SME companies according to the life cycle of each individual company. 2.1.4 City College Brighton and Hove / United Kingdom Situated in the heart of Brighton on the South Coast of England, and graded ‘Outstanding’ in key areas by Ofsted in its June 2011 report, City College Brighton and Hove is an international centre of vocational excellence and one of the top performing Further Education (FE) Colleges in the country. Every year, 2,000 full-time, 7,000 part time, 400 Higher Education and 400 14-16 year old students as well as many international and European students choose City College as their place of further and higher education training. The College provides training to over 2,000 businesses via its ‘City Business Skills’ department which focuses on employer training needs. Offering over 700 courses from basic level right through to business and postgraduate training, City College is working with its partners to develop the workforce of the future. Over the last few years, FE Colleges and training providers in the UK have been given more freedoms and flexibilities to use public funding, enabling them to be more responsive to the needs of local communities, employers and individuals. With qualifications no longer the key driver of funding, colleges are now able to use funding allocations to deliver programmes better tailored to meet local needs and provide the skills and competencies needed for work. Against the backdrop of reductions in public funding for education provision, City College takes a resource-efficient approach to setting-up and delivering training courses. Although customer needs and local demand are taken into account, it is done so within the framework of a necessity to achieve the most efficient utilisation of resources, as opposed to the most efficient flow from the customer perspective. Why participating in LeanVET? Having met potential project partners and been introduced to Lean concepts, City College was interested in joining the LeanVET project to identify whether the application of Lean methodologies could reduce wastage in the public funding of learning. City College Brighton and Hove´s contribution to LeanVET We planned to review and remove unnecessary content and processes in the development and delivery of new courses, and to test the effectiveness of designing educational opportunities from the end-user perspective, rather than our own ‘expert’ knowledge.

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2.1.5 CPH WEST / Denmark CPH WEST is one of the biggest VET schools in the Copenhagen area, located at 6 different addresses. We provide labour market courses and VET courses among others: Hairdressing, fitness, beauticians, commerce, electricians, tailoring and blacksmith. Furthermore, we provide all three educational fields of high school – higher commercial examination, higher technical examination and upper secondary examination. We participate in several projects nationally as well as internationally because we find that it is necessary to develop pedagogically, as to the education content and the administrative routines. We educate approximately 5.000 numbers of youngsters and 6.000 numbers of adults including 180 numbers of BAE students per year, which 520 staff members takes care of. Our turnover is 48 million Euro per year. Our department offers short courses – labour market courses – for adults whether they are employed or not. We have worked with basic adult education at VET level (the BAE programme) for the past 5-6 years as the only school in Denmark who provides separate classes, specific for this target group. Other VET schools have mixed this target group with ordinary students. This programme was a slow starter with only one class per year, but slowly the demand increased and we began to offer more classes yearly. Due to our participation in a national project “From unskilled to skilled within record time” our intake of BAE students has increased rapidly during the past year. Therefore we needed to learn about Lean to straighten our administrative routines and processes linked to the processes for the counselor guide for the benefit of our students. CPH WEST has involved a minor area of our organization and production in this project. Only a small number of staff members are directly involved in the Lean team’s work. Our top management is absent in this process. In CPH WEST the top management has set a frame for the local management to work within and the local management has, in turn, delegated this frame to the staff members. This implies that the local management only interferes when the Lean team asks them to do so. This is a typical way of management in Denmark in workplaces where the staff members are knowledge workers. Why participating in LeanVET? Our motivation for joining LeanVET was to get input from other VET organizations in comparable countries with different legislation and cultural differences in the field of adult education. Their input has made us investigate our procedures by asking ourselves why we are doing things the way we are: Do we need to do this? Is it useful for our customers? Is it useful for us? We have gained a lot for our processes by joining this project because of our partner’s differences. CPH WEST´s contribution to LeanVET We have Leaned the administrative process which starts when a potential student contacting the school for the first time, with the desire of getting training within the field of administration, and which ends when she/he is sitting in the classroom for the first lesson. Our purpose is to optimize our procedures so that they become relevant for our students in terms of different forms and time spent on getting answers to questions and on filling in the Basic Adult Education plan. 7

2.2

Design of the project

With a Lean-approach, each partner/country focuses at different areas that occur in a VET system: 1. accreditation of prior learning (NL), 2. counseling guidance (DK), 3. pilot Lean courses (UK), 4. company services and co-operation (FIN), 5. combining different levels in the education system (SWE). The project lasted during October 2012 – September 2014. Six transnational meetings have been held in the different locations of the partners. At each meeting, it is the host that set the overall theme and the focus is on their specific contribution to the project.

2.2.1 Lean Academy The learning of Lean strategies and methods has been supervised by a well experienced mentor. The mentor has, at each transnational meeting, held lectures, in person or via video conference. In between meetings partners have had assignments and follow-up Skype meetings with the mentor. Action plan Each partner has worked out an action plan, in the form of suggestions to the management, describing how each will carry out their part of the work within the LeanVet project according to Lean principles. The core of the action plan is to describe 8

the situation prevailing when the project started, what has been achieved during the project (October 2013 - May 2014) and to describe the situation in May 2014. Further, the Target condition of May 2015 is determined but also Target condition of December 2014. The key activity is to visualize the obstacles that prevent the organization from being in the target conditions already now. The existing obstacles are then translated into an activity plan, a plan of how to overcome them. The action plan has been presented to each organization´s management who has made a written response. This is a way to get acknowledgement and legitimacy from the management for the suggestions of how to implement the Lean strategy in the organization or in part of it.

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3 What Lean is to us Lean, with roots from the Toyota Production System, has spread into all types of organizations over the last 10 years. We find it in hospitals, in many parts of the public sector, in governmental agencies as well as in industry. Lean is a strategy aiming at increased flow efficiency - very often resulting in increased resource efficiency as well. Organizations where this strategy successfully has been implemented are among other things characterized by: - Respect for people - Teamwork and a high degree of staff participation - Visual management - Understanding customer value - Continuous improvement by identification of wastes and failure demands and systematical elimination of the root causes - Continuous learning The expression itself, Lean, was formulated in an article labeled Triumph of the Lean Production System by John Krafcik 1988. Krafcik was a member of the research programme International Motor Vehicle Program at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was when observing the marvelous results of the Toyota Production System the researchers started to identify the features of their concept and labeled it as Lean. A core idea when implementing Lean is to maximize customer value while minimizing waste in the chain of activities that create the value. For this reason a Value Stream Analysis is often a starting point in Lean implementation. Management focus will have to shift from optimizing vertical departments, separate technologies and assets to optimizing the flow of services and products through entire value streams that flow horizontally across technologies, assets, and departments to customers. Some of the challenges in the public sector in relation to Lean are: - you are there to satisfy needs for a range of stakeholders, therefore the customer concept needs proper consideration - principles like transparency, equal treatment and legal certainty are more dominant than in the private sector - as tax money is used you may be limited in adapting to the stakeholders’ true need In adult education there are other interesting challenges as well: - variation of all kinds is normal; for example prior knowledge of students, number of students, presence or absence of students due to parallel activities. - a concept like standardized work in the team, that in Lean is basic for any

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improvement, may be scaring if it is not clearly separated from the tayloristic concepts of standards used to force people to act in a certain way. Lean implementation starts with the management. A visual policy deployment to give direction, support and enable alignment is crucial. In service organizations, like providers of adult education, the courage to turn from command and control to system thinking and decision making close to the students are important. Lean is not just a product or manual that can easily be imported and implemented. It needs in most cases a shift in view regarding how to organize a business. Also, it takes time to implement Lean, actually it never ends.

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4 Stories In this chapter you can read about examples of lessons learned and effects of our work during the project. 4.1

The Adult Education Authority in Gothenburg / Sweden

Flexication – gutters rather than downpipes for Lean adult learning It is evident that getting employed needs higher as well as wider qualifications than before. At the same time we saw an education system for adults which is poorly linked internally. In order to receive the training a person has identified as required for being employable or for getting a necessary competence enhancement, he or she needs to compose his or her own education program, unless all the courses belong to the same school system. But the needs of the labor market do not take the organization of the school system for adults in consideration. The labor market just wants competence. By the help of Lean thinking we decided to link the adult school system actors closer to one another through environmental scanning in three different businesses. The hypothesis was that, if we could offer education that was tailor-made to business needs, we could offer a highly relevant education program with little ‘waste’. The process would be faster than if the students themselves had to find out what courses, at what levels, are required and then apply for each course separately. Together we – the Adult Education Authority in Gothenburg – together with the university and the Higher Vocational Education created three educational offers where the students could receive education at three levels in the school system. The three areas were team leader in construction work, advanced technician and administrative work in the public sector. From a Lean perspective Flexication has two customers, the employer and the student. The employer will benefit in their competence supply and the student will gain competence for their careers. Also, Flexication will be a faster way to conduct education compared to if the student or the employer had to design their own training program from the different school form. A customer perspective of participating in Flexication The student Ingela Liffner participated in the Administration course. She is working as an administrator in the city of Gothenburg and has long work experience from the public sector. However, she has previously not studied at a higher educational level. Also, she has not participated in any formal studies for the last fifteen years. Among the students at the administration course, all of them are currently holding a position as administrator in the city. The administrators often have very short educational background, but substantial work experience. This is also the case with Ingela Liffner. Ingela says participating in Flexication is the best thing she has ever done. She has both grown as a person as well as a professional. Since the courses were built one on top of the other in a logical way, she 12

dared to go all the way to university level. By studying at the university level she says she has gained a holistic view on her work tasks. Her work is now put in a larger context which gives greater meaning and understanding. That brings motivation to her daily work to a much greater extent. To study while working was quite demanding though. You need a supportive manager and you need to plan your work, private life as well as your studies. It was an effort, but it was really worth it, Ingela says. She has grown as person, she is performing better at work and her self-esteem has grown. She thinks that she can get new work tasks in her current position as well as being attractive on the labor market when looking for new jobs. The manager of the administration Lotta Romlin encouraged and supported her coworkers to participate in Flexication. From her point of view this is a pilot and it rightly is. She sees some improvements that need to be done for the next group participating in Flexication, but overall she recommends all administrators, with the willingness and possibility, to study according to the Flexication model. Participating in Flexication is a once in a lifetime opportunity, she says. Apart from getting new knowledge, it can also lead to a new career or further studies. The administrators have been put in the searchlight and have started networking throughout the city. They feel a greater belonging within their professional field now. Last, but not least, they have got a much greater self-esteem. Flexication can open up new ways of conducting VET that meet labor market requirements in several ways. Faster, more tailor-made, based on fact of what to offer in the courses and with lower barriers between adult education, Higher Vocational Education and university education. It is difficult, takes time, sometimes meets opposition and it involves hard work for the students. But it is worth it!

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4.2

Alfa-College / The Netherlands

One of the challenges in our project was to apply Lean tools to the content of our courses. One of the goals of our work package in the LeanVET project was to create a career model for adult students based upon a Lean approach to encourage a more dynamic startup in the labor market. We chose adult migrant learners as our main target group within this project. The distance to the labor market is very long, they are new in our society, are not proficient in our language and face many obstacles in society and in the labor market. Our migrant learners have a long and bureaucratic way to go while integrating in the Netherlands. The process is not organized efficiently which causes double work, many handovers, long throughput time and waste of time. Municipalities and schools have to follow certain administrative procedures that cause long throughput times. Furthermore most of the course-requirements do not enable schools to combine several goals in the learning process at the same time. Migrant learners usually have to learn the language up to a certain level before they can follow courses and training in orientation on further education and their possibilities on the labor market. The consequence of this is that it takes a long time before migrant learners can even start to focus upon further education or job orientation, because the language requirements to be able to do so have to be met first. When we started the LeanVET project we aimed mainly at changing these long throughput times by focusing on possibilities to change the bureaucratic administrative procedures and as a school think ‘outside the box’ and to combine language courses and orientation on further education or the labor market as soon as possible. Empowering our students through a method without wasting time was our motto. By using Lean tools we were able to get rid of wastes in the administrative procedures and to redefine our learning curricula for language, adding elements of activation and orientation in the labor market as well as vocational training if possible. The first results of implementing Lean tools: When analyzing the bureaucratic administrative processes, with their long waiting and throughput time, we involved the contact persons of Social services to look at every step in the process very carefully and if possible eliminate duplicated actions and time waste in the flow. We were able to eliminate 5 out of 20 actions from the flow of a migrant student sent by the municipality, so we actually won 25% in efficiency. The waiting time of the migrant learner was shortened from somewhere over 12 weeks before starting a course to a maximum of 6 weeks. For our teachers it meant redefining and changing our learning curricula but also develop a Lean follow up system in the form of a visual portfolio and digital improvement board so the teachers could easily see where the learners were situated at different measuring moments in the program. They developed methods of combining language skills with elements of social activation, orientation on further education and the labor market and even vocational training as soon as possible in our courses. By thinking outside the box in our programs we are not limited by opinions saying that migrant learners first have to reach a certain level in language before they can actually start with orientation and activation. By adding these elements as soon as possible, using a Lean approach, the 14

teachers actually got a clearer view of the talents of the migrant learners were. They discovered that by using portfolio methods and linking our language programs to out of school activities, migrant learners were able to progress faster through the language programs and also improved their skills in reading and writing in Dutch language. This is because they had to actively the language in different out of school situations such as speaking and listening in different social contexts and participating in language-based internships. The following comments of some of our teachers and students show that by using Lean tools we can encourage a more dynamic start-up in the labor market without waste of time. Teacher Simone van Leusden from the Alfa-college: “We link language training to activation.” “In the activation phase we look first at where the learners are in terms of participation level. After that we formulate a realistic goal. We look for activities that match what the learners can do. Some learners are on the lowest step. They are still completely isolated and do not have any activities outside the home. Other learners are already very actively trying to find voluntary work or paid work. The learners work on their development by doing assignments outside school and applying the language learned in practice. They practise things that will enable them to participate in further activities: they register themselves for a course or activity, join the library and start to investigate their own talents and possibilities. They are coached individually towards an internship and/or voluntary work. Learners who want to do voluntary work become familiar with this by interviewing a volunteer and visiting the volunteers’ vacancy facility. Ultimately they respond to a vacancy and they have an intake meeting. They also learn employees’ skills. For example, they make a week schedule so that they can learn to plan better. All the activities completed are registered in a portfolio. The link between language training and activation is essential to ensure that learners do actually start to participate. The acquisition of language skills is a vital part of this.” Participant Fatma: “I was afraid to start working again.” “I did the Helping training course and then I had my children. When I wanted to start working again, and had registered with a temporary employment agency, I was scared when they phoned me. I was afraid to start working again. I didn’t know what I had to do and I did not dare to do anything. But, thanks to the support of the programme, I got some work experience again and so my knowledge came back again. That has made it easier for me to think about working, and now I have already been working for a while in a care institution.”

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Participant Victoria: “I want to be a good example for my children.” “The start of my work was very difficult. My coaches from Alfa-college were always there to help me and give advice, but in the beginning that did not go well because of the language problems I had. A couple of months later it turned out that my coaches were right. I had to do more and let go of and forget my past. I feel at home in my workplace. I do administrative work and I like doing that because I’m good at arithmetic. The Dutch language remains difficult. I really want a job. In the future, if I’ve got to tell my son that he’s got to go to school, I don’t want him to say “mama, you didn’t go to school, you never did anything in your life.” I really don’t want that. I want to be a good example for my children.”

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4.3

TAKK / Finland

TAKK strategy 2014-2016 TAKK renewed its values and business strategy two years ago. One of the new strategic focuses was to develop our educational and consultative work among the entrepreneurs and start-ups. We have a long history in entrepreneurship training already, but it was time to take a bigger leap in arranging education and developing services for entrepreneurs because of the growing importance of small companies providing people with work in the Pirkanmaa region. We wanted to be able to be a part of this important field and support the small companies and also start-ups, for them to be more successful. HiOMO and Lean found each other HiOMO was established in May 2013 on the grounds of a previous entrepreneurship training field. At the beginning of our journey we had four women and a big passion for entrepreneurship and wanted to renew our service processes and products. We also had almost 500 entrepreneur students and many programmes for them and a vision to be the biggest entrepreneur trainer in Finland. Most of all we wanted to develop our ways of doing things. A foundation for growth was established. But how to proceed from there? At this stage we heard about Lean, a strategy to achieve an objective. It became the answer to our question. When we compared our actions with Lean methods, we very soon realised that the vision was all but customer-based. Also we had to answer to the question ”how does HiOMO adapt the Lean tools and methods for sales and training processes”? So we had to start our work from the beginning, learn more about Lean ideology and build a new big picture (vision and strategy) for HiOMO. HiOMO goes to vision and ‘scrums’ This second phase we started I a more innovative way. We didn’t want to do the work alone, so we invited a group of innovative people from our network, who also have a passion for entrepreneurship, to work together with us for creating the vision for HiOMO in a half-day work shop. Also for this session we had an innovative consultant to lead the process with creative tools; three hours processing and HiOMO had all the elements needed for a vision. The most important remark was the idea that people do not buy what we do, but they buy because of why and how we do it. In addition to traditional entrepreneurship training, HiOMO wants to offer the customers strength and wellbeing, courage to get along with business, time for themselves, fresh stimulus and people, dreams and competence, enthusiasm and joy, continuous improvement and innovations, both a leap of tiger and firm steps. HiOMO´s mission was stated: ”HiOMO is a community, which grows, renews and reforms!”. The idea of HiOMO as a community concept was born. We need each other and we have a lot to offer to each other. We invent ideas together, we test the ideas and build together. We measure results and above all we learn together. 17

HiOMO´s vision is totally customer-based. In the innovative developing group which worked together with us there were entrepreneurs and people from our network. After the first work shop with the result of basic lines we continued to work with our students and our HiOMO-team by doing so called ‘scrum work’ which is part of the Lean start upphilosophy. In the centre of the scrum there is a continuous improvement and HiOMO´s vision. We have two so called ‘scrum teams’. A scrum team is a self-guiding and multicompetent team, who chooses its own objectives and tasks for continuous improvement. Thus it has the responsibility to follow up their own work too and make sure that it achieves its objectives. One team is for start-up entrepreneurs and another for existing entrepreneurs. Both scrum teams have their own leader, ‘scrum master’, who takes care of the continuous improvement together with the team members and the students. In our first HiOMO innovation workshop we developed the vision along strategic lines. In that session the members of the HiOMO team participated and also one person from TAKK´s developing team. This process was also innovative and we used the Lean method, ‘X Matrix for Visual Management’ for the work. In the middle of the X Matrix TAKK´s values were placed: ‘a brave pioneer and a reliable companion’. The results from the brainstorming became HiOMO’s main strategic goals: competent and experienced coaches, a HiOMO house in the city centre, a net shop, a HiOMO alumni network, an innovative network and community as well as honest customer-based training and coaching. HiOMO´s Gemba walk, strategy and continuous improvement HiOMO´s strategy and main objectives of continuous improvement will be written down on the steering board, which is situated in the room of the training manager. We will evaluate it every week in the so called HiOMO15 minutes meeting in front of the steering board. The other whiteboard is situated in the common room of the HiOMO team, and divided in two one for each scrum team. There the scrum teams can see and follow not only daily figures and facts but also tasks, timetables and responsibilities of continuous improvement. This is the stage where we are now, practising and all the time learning more, with added value for the customer on our mind!

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4.4 City College Brighton and Hove / United Kingdom Piloting the use of Lean methodologies in the development of new courses We opted to test the use of Lean methodologies and tools with our Opening Doors courses, aimed at unemployed learners and designed in partnership with Jobcentre Plus (JCP). Initially, we mapped the value stream to identify where duplication and failure demands were occurring in the system. We identified several processes impeding flow efficiency and causing delays and wastage: 

 

The bonus on learners to provide evidence of their benefits as part of the enrolment process was a major barrier to flow, with many learners bringing incorrect paperwork or not having any paperwork at all One Team Leader responsible for all courses and tutors was leading to delays in response times due to workload Some people were being referred to inappropriate courses by JCP Advisors

We worked closely with JCP throughout the process and agreed the following improvements could be made to improve customer flow through the system:   

JCP agreed to provide benefits evidence for individuals, making the enrolment process flow much more efficiently A member of staff has been appointed as Course Leader to organize and respond to tutors City College staff have held briefing sessions at JCP for Advisors, not only to inform them of courses but also to explain entry requirements, suitability and alternative provision options

The Commercial Team Leader also utilised further Lean tools to identify continuous improvements, including the Plan, Do, Check, Act model and an Improvement Board located within the team. As a result of these, the following improvements have been made: 



Personal development plans have been introduced for each learner and tracked by tutors – this is designed to improve achievement and progression outcomes for learners Monthly Opening Doors newsletter is now being produced - this is designed to promote the good news stories from Opening Doors and to act as an ongoing reminder for JCP Advisors about the programme

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

There are now more opportunities for employers to get involved in the delivery – employers are no longer asked to provide four week work placements but are now asked to come into the group to talk about job opportunities in their organisation and what they are looking for; their involvement means we are now able to provide guaranteed interviews on Opening Doors

Next steps and conclusion Our next target conditions that we are aiming to achieve by December 2014 are:   

Find out the progression destination of at least 60% of Opening Doors completers within six weeks of leaving Increase the number of employers offering guaranteed interviews to learners on Opening Doors by 50% Review and streamline the general enrolment process and pilot during the main enrolment intake in Summer 2014

The introduction of Lean methodologies within City College has been an interesting and useful experience. Our implementation of Lean through the LeanVET project was concentrated on one particular team within the college and focussed on piloting a number of Lean tools that we had gained knowledge of through the project’s Lean Academy. Although this has resulted in some improvements, this is just one very small step in our Lean journey. Our next challenge is to start to introduce Lean methodologies within other teams, starting with our admissions and enrolments team. One of the key challenges we have faced in introducing Lean thinking and methodologies is in overcoming the paradox of flow efficiency versus resource efficiency. This is a key factor prevalent in the further education environment of today.

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4.5

CPH WEST / Denmark

The story of a Lean journey at CPH WEST, Denmark Can CPH WEST support the idea of using Lean methodology in a VET organization’s administrative procedures? YES, we can! The situation at CPH WEST was that we needed to become much better in our administrative procedure regarding application to Basic Adult Education (BAE). The lack of clear procedures was the cause to no focus on the students’ direct needs. In the beginning of our Lean journey our secretary was rather reluctant because she didn’t know what to expect and at which level she had to commit herself to this journey. But the Lean team (one counsellor, one coordinator, one secretary, one head of department and the project manager) started our common journey. The secretary became more and more interested in what the outcome of this project would gain for our processes and the students. As we worked our way through, describing the current situation as it was in this area, measuring our phone calls, e-mails and personal inquiries to get an idea of how the situation was. We interviewed some students about our procedures and we worked out a questionnaire to the students asking for information about different procedures. During this process the secretary’s knowledge was brought into action and her input was very useful for the improvement work. We went on, improving our web site with the right information. All involved staff members agreed upon following the suggested procedures, which was satisfying for everyone involved, but even more so for the secretary, because she now began to get the right information at the right time in the flow. We standardized all necessary procedures and information material, which gave the freedom for the staff members to concentrate their work on the students’ needs. Because of this, the secretary began to act proactively concerning new areas to improve and to take on tasks on her own accord. She has even started an improvement journey with a Job Centre for development of a new procedure for our unemployed students to make sure, that they do not have to wait longer than necessary to get acceptance to start at the BAE.

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Table 1. Reading instructions: The questions form the interview and from the questionnaires have been categorized in the table below into the headlines: The coordinator, the counsellor, the BAE plan, the total BAE flow and recommendation of CPH WEST. We have measured the answers from the questionnaires in the period of January to April 2014.

Period Interview June 2013 10 persons by phone January - April 2014

The coordinator Not Good good

The counsellor Not Good good

The BAE plan Not Good good

The total BAE flow Not Good good

Recom. of CPH WEST Yes

No

5

5

7

3

6

4

6

4

8

2

29

14

15

3

44

6

13

8

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3

Questionnaires 21 persons in paper general conclusion

Table 2 Reading instructions: We have measured all incoming e-mails, phone calls, personal inquiries and reminders from potential students for getting answers to their questions in the period of June to August 2013 (July is vacation time) and again in January 2014

Period

E-mails

Phone calls

Personal inquiries

Reminders

June & August 2013

662

323

70

83

January 2014

427

176

18

5

Reduction

235

147

52

78

In the Lean team the team spirit has grown very strong because all members have the same knowledge in overall terms. Each specialist still takes care of their specific area, but now everyone knows who are relaying on whom in the flow. Today the secretary can answer 60 % of all inquiries correctly, as compared to before when she was only able to answer 10% of the questions correctly. The secretary experiences much more work satisfaction as a result of our Lean journey. Because of our Lean journey our students’ experiences with our Basic Adult Education (BAE) flow is far better than before we started working with Lean. YES, we can recommend using Lean methodology in a VET organization’s administrative procedures for the benefit of the team and of course the students.

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Why – growth of:  Focus on the students but also on our colleagues as internal customers  Teamwork  Team spirit  Common knowledge  Common agreements  Work satisfaction  Commitment  Proactive action  Constant improvements  Standardized work methods  Standardized information letters  Awareness of bottlenecks in the process flow Recommendations: Ask why and where to improve  Pilot a small area – learning by doing  Seek help from one who has done Lean before – you don’t know Lean before you have done it.  Management commitment is important.  Be sensible when using the word ‘Lean’ – may cause frustration in the organization.

Before Lean was implemented

and after

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5 Findings and recommendations

5.1

Management responses of the Action plans

The Action plan that each partner has worked out during this project, according to the newly acquired knowledge about Lean strategies and methods, has been presented to each organizations´ management. Here are some quotes about their responses: “The Action Plan will be very useful in our work with implementation of Flexication. It will be used as a guideline in relation to our long term targets. The plan is well formulated with realistic target conditions as well as the obstacles that we have to deal with.” Jan Elftorp, Director The Adult Education Authority in Gothenburg / Sweden

”If you (the lean team) mean it is necessary to do what you propose, you may do it if it is relevant for improving the processes /..../ Important for the Lean team to have ownership of the processes – they have to be in charge of all details – top down not bottom up in the daily work /…/ To be part of this project have made the team spirit grown and the team members are shining because of the growth in work pleasure.” Lars Mikkelsen, Vice Principal Division of Adult Education, CPH WEST, Denmark

“The traces of the development work are clearly visible in HiOMO’s work today, and the tools provided by the Lean Philosophy are used in everyday work. For instance, team meetings and development meetings are regularly held at the Scrum-Ban whiteboards, and development objectives, results and learnings emerge on the boards. Our students and partners are also strongly included in the development work and the planning of new service products. A result of the project and its final report was the HiOMO concept which partly describes the current state and partly the vision of how HiOMO is wanted to be seen and perceived in the future.” Teppo Tapani, Principal and Jari Raivo, Director of Services and Business TAKK/Finland

“The managment considers Lean working as one of the essential aspects in realizing improvements in efficiency, through decreasing waste of time, unnecessary steps and double work, our processes can be carried out in an efficient way that benefits our students and our employees. The Action plan reflects the goals and targets that we set in order to assure a safe future for the Department of Adult Education” Marion Arends, Regional Director Alfa-college VET Technical Education And Training, Entrance level and Adult EducationAlfa-College / The Netherlands

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5.2

Findings and recommendations

Lean is not just a product or manual that easily can be imported and implemented. It needs, in most cases, a shift in view regarding how to organize a business. Also, it takes time to implement Lean, actually it never ends. What are the common patterns we can see in LeanVET that we can label as findings which further on can be transformed to some kind of recommendations? That is of course not easily done since we all work in different contexts and we have taken different parts of departure in the project. However, we are all in the VET sector, we have followed the same curriculum in the project, we have been supervised by the same Lean mentor and we have met and exchanged experiences throughout the project. We can underline some issues when working with Lean that needs to be given some extra attention. Thus, we can give some recommendations when it comes to Lean and VET. To make an analysis we need a basic structure to take departure from. We have chosen to see Lean containing of three parts that together makes a functioning Lean system or Lean organization: 1. Culture 2. A common and visual system of working with Lean 3. Lean tools

A common and visual system of working with lean

Culture

Lean tools

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Lean tools Our findings show an organization needs to work from different angles regarding these three parts. The management has of course the over-all responsibility for getting a Lean implementation started. The management also has to work actively to keep the implementation evolving. But the co-workers also have their responsibility to make this work. When the co-workers are given the right pre-conditions; mandate to act in their field of professionalism as well as competence enough in the field of Lean, they can start the Lean implementation by testing one or few Lean tools. This will give further understanding of the specific tool, but it will also be obvious what further development has to be considered and done in order to deal with arised results. For instance; when the co-workers starts working with the structured method for improvements, Plan-Do-CheckAct (PDCA), and they visualize the ongoing work on an improvement board, questions appears regarding:  How will the result be dealt with?  What kind of common system do we need to ensure the results are taken care of?  How do we know other members of our organization get the information about the new best way of working – as a result of using Lean improvement tools.  We need to make an improvement that involves several processes of our organization; how do we co-operate with the other processes? To organize the work of improvement you need some kind of common and visual system of working, a system that is designed to work for the entire organization in order to make the Lean work visible and understandable for all involved.

A common and visual system of working with Lean To be able to work successfully according to Lean strategy you need to find a common and visual system for the work of improvement. The improvements that are made by coworkers must be put in a holistic context, based on the demands and needs of the customers. How we work to meet the customer needs must be analyzed, structured and visualized in a common system of working according to Lean. This common system of working is two-fold. First it has to deal with more or less tangible parts, like what kind of physical artifacts the common system is built upon, how and when we meet, who participates in what meeting, how we choose to show what we are doing (visualization) etc. Below there are samples of questions related to the tangible parts of the common system of working with Lean:     

Where can I get information about what to improve? Where can I inform about improvements I have done? If I see a problem that I want to high-light, where can I tell about it? What kinds of Lean tools are available? How do we know if we have enough resources to work with improvement? 26

The second part when it comes to a common system of working, deals with the soft parts – or intangible parts – like relations, allocation of resources, support, responsibility, coworkership, leadership, competence etc. For instance, the co-workers need the appropriate mandate to be able to work with continuous improvements within their field of expertise. The management needs to support them to do so, but also be able to allocate the right amount of resources for improvement work. The management gives a mandate to the co-workers which also are an obligation for the co-workers, they are allowed but also obliged to improve the organization. At the very same time the mandate are moved from the management to the co-workers; the management must ask for results, regularly go and see in the organization how things are evolving, make sure new standards are respected and that the common system runs smoothly. In turn, when the co-workers possess more mandates, they need to:    

Identify problems that can be turned into improvement Deliver results Actively argue for what the balance between improvement work and daily work looks like Follow the standards the common system is based upon

To this point we have argued about Lean tools and a common system for working with Lean. As you can see we move from the rather easy parts (tools, how to meet, how to show results etc) to more interpersonal issues (leadership, co-workership and how we work together towards a common goal). We think the next part of this is the Lean culture. Lean culture We have realized that the culture in an organization is important to be able to implement Lean successfully. Someone said Lean is a “state” which occurs when the staff, management and the organization is mature enough and works as we have said it should work. Another way to put it is that the organization has a collective mind-set where the individual as well as the collective, works according to Lean principles and methods. The Lean culture does not appear from nowhere. You cannot command a culture to change or appear nor evolve. The culture consists of all people involved and their interaction among them. All people are responsible for the culture. The Lean culture must evolve during implementing tools, designing a common system for working with Lean as well as the management has a strategy for supporting the Lean implementation as well as the development of a Lean culture.

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A Lean culture is when everyone in the organization stands behind and believes in the principles of:      

everything always can be developed to something little better problems will be seen as possibilities rather than, just problems it is our system and not individuals that causes problems ask “Why” instead of “who” when you work with solving a problem everyone will start to change oneself since you know best where the problems are and how they best could be solved. “respect of people”

Recommendations These three Lean parts – Culture, A common system of working and Lean tools – must all be implemented, developed and linked to each other to make Lean work satisfactory in the long run. In LeanVET none of us has gone the entire way. Most common is that the management has encouraged members of the project to try out to implement Lean strategy and methods in some part of their organization. Then we have launched a Lean journey based on the knowledge and skills we have gained from this project. We have dealt with some Lean tools, involved some co-workers, found some positive results but also seen the inevitable need of deeply management commitment in order to link what we are doing to other actors that are important. The involvement of management has varied among the partners of LeanVET. Without management´s commitment we will not be able to go further with our Lean journey. In some cases the management has been more actively involved than in others, where the management for different reasons has not given the fully or necessary support. Management can support in different ways. They can say “Lean is good” and they can say “Lean is good as well act as a Lean leader”. The latter one is one of the toughest parts in making Lean work satisfactory in the long run. Leaders often have to revise their leadership. That is a big and difficult change to accomplish. Our recommendation to other VET organizations that are planning to implement Lean strategy and methods is that you need to work from different angles simultaneously, which are illustrated below.

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Co-workers

Lean tools

A common way Culture

Mana geme nt

The management must decide to work with Lean strategy and methods and give the initial knowledge and skills to the co-workers so they can start testing working with Lean tools. The management needs to be prepared to design a common and visual system of working with Lean together with the co-workers in order to create a common understanding of the organization. The co-worker must be prepared and really motivated to work according to Lean principles and the management must support and encourage the co-workers in that. As the Lean tools and the common system of working with Lean is developed the management must both support and encourage the co-workers but they must also ask for results to keep the process ongoing and alive. In the LeanVET cases we have not fully used this two-angle strategy for implementing Lean. Most focus has been on the co-worker side with a confirmation from the management to try to work with Lean. We have not fully reached the position where we neither have a Lean culture nor developed fully functioning ways of common systems of working. We have seen the intrinsic potential of Lean but we recommend other VET organizations as well as other organizations to really work with Lean implementation from two angles – from the co-workers and the management. Doing so you improve your Lean tools, you improve your common system of working, you improve your Lean culture and last but not least you increase your possibility to be successful in implementing Lean and also be successful meeting you customer needs.

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Beside the above description of findings and recommendations there are a few more aspects we would like to bring to people or organizations interested in Lean in VET organizations.  Hiring an external consultant is valuable in the start-up process. The consultant can give you the knowledge necessary to understand what Lean is about. But more important the consultant is really valuable when it comes to embolden you to start trying working with Lean. When you start working with Lean, you see it actually makes sense and is not harmful.  Keep a balance between your daily work and your improvement work. Also keep a moderate pace in every improvement work. You will work Lean for a long time, so do not stress. It is better to get it done.  If you work in a public sector organization, you do not always have a vision or an objective, but you always have a purpose of why your organization exists. The organization is there for someone. Always keep the purpose of your organization top of mind when you are working Lean. That, in Lean terms, means you keep the outward-inward perspective rather that only looking at your internal organization.  When you face a problem that you turn to a possibility to improve, always try to base your common situation (the problem) on facts. In many cases you describe a problem based on rumors or a feeling. Try to avoid that and collect data that is also possible to measure after you have gone through with an improvement work.  The satisfaction after accomplished a successful improvement is great. Just be stubborn enough to fulfill every improvement work you start. Otherwise you risk to make people disappointed.

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6 Literature Womack, J. P. & Jones, D. T. (2003) Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation. Second edition Simon & Schuster, Inc. Liker, J. (2004) The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World´s Greatest Manufacturer. McGraw-Hill Professional Modig, N. & Åhlström, P. (2012) This Is Lean: Resolving the efficiency paradox. Rheologica Publishing www.rheologica.com Rother, M. (2009) Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results. McGraw Hill Professional Seddon, J. (2005) Freedom From Command and Control: Rethinking Management For Lean Service

Jackson, T. L. (2006) Hoshin Kanri for the Lean enterprise. CRC Press, www.crcpress.com

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7 Contact For more information about LeanVET please don´t hesitate to contact us. Louise Gudmundsen Project manager and coordinator LeanVET / Sweden E-mail: [email protected] Phone: +46 (0) 31 368 3007

Partners of LeanVET Jane Kolding CPH-WEST/ Denmark E-mail: [email protected] Phone: +45 3388 0985

Rudi Knol Alfa-college /Netherlands E-mail: [email protected] Phone: +31 06 21274127

Päivi Puutio Tampere Adult Education Centre / Finland E-mail: [email protected] Phone: +358 44 7906 519

Kirsti Godston City College Brighton and Hove / United Kingdom E-mail: [email protected] Phone: +44 01273 667788

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John Harming The Adult Education Authority in Gothenburg /Sweden E-mail: [email protected] Phone: +46 (0) 31 368 30 24

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