The Impact of Lean Practices on Educational Performance: An Empirical Investigation for Public Sector Universities of Malaysia

Abstract

Education is considered the backbone of any country. Although Malaysia is a growing economy, this growth cannot sustain without education. In the last few decades, this factor has affected negatively, particularly due to the reduction in the budget; public sector universities have suffered significantly. However, various strategies and approaches are available in the literature that can help institutions to tackle the problems by improving efficiency and effectiveness. Lean management is considered as a crucial element for every organization. By applying lean approaches organizations can improve not only the performance for the manufacturing sector but also for service sectors as well. The purpose of the current article is to determine the probable advantages of lean approaches in the public sector of Malaysia. Three approaches were selected for this study, “total quality management (TQM), 5’s services and quick change over”. A questionnaire was adopted and distributed among the public sector universities of Malaysia. Meanwhile, after the screening, 367 responses were considered for data analysis. SPSS version 23 has been used for data analysis. Missing values, outliers, linearity, and normality was assessed before multiple regressions. The results revealed that all three approaches positively and significantly enhanced the educational performance of Malaysia. This study will help the administrators of the universities to understand better how they can reduce their work; build their operations more effectively and efficiently. There is a necessity to examine other approaches and conduct a qualitative study to discover the lean management in the educational system in Malaysia