Reducing Waste in Administrative Services with Lean Principles

Lean techniques have been applied for improving production systems in manufacturing processes over the last two decades and have had a profound impact on productivity. More recently, lean is used outside manufacturing; for example in hospitals, government agencies, and service organizations. This paper focuses on reducing waste in administrative processes in organizations. A lean approach for optimizing administrative processes is developed by adapting the conceptualization of waste and developing a set of lean principles for administrative processes. The method was field tested at a university. Waste in the current processes was identified and classified. Recommendations for reducing waste were then made according to lean principles. The study shows that the adapted conceptualizations of waste are applicable to administrative processes. Principles and techniques could also be transferred from manufacturing to administrative processes. Two additional principles were added to address recurrent problems found in administration: improving communication and designing information systems to support users in an optimal way.