Bridging Reengineering and Lean: A Complementary Path for Higher Education

Response to "Transforming Higher Education Through Lean Principles"

Date: November 3, 2025

Responding to: Eric Olsen (Central Coast Lean) and Mark Jacobs (University of Dayton)

Author: Enar A. Tunç, Adjunct Instructor, California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo

augmented with Claude.AI

Contact: etunc@calpoly.edu

Eric and Mark, thank you for your thoughtful exploration of lean principles in higher education—and for making it accessible in both text and audio formats. Your analysis of administrative bloat and faculty time poverty resonates with challenges I've observed across multiple institutions internationally.

However, I'd like to offer a complementary perspective: before continuous improvement can flourish, universities may need fundamental process reengineering. This isn't contradiction—it's necessary preparation.

The Core Challenge: Incremental Improvement of Broken Systems

Your value stream mapping exercise reveals a critical truth: faculty working 60-hour weeks navigating processes built for hypothetical compliance rather than educational value. But here's the deeper issue—many administrative processes shouldn't be improved; they should be eliminated entirely.

When students visit five different offices for enrollment, they're not experiencing waste within an efficient system. They're experiencing inevitable dysfunction from fragmented organizational design. Your lean tools expose the symptoms; reengineering addresses the disease.

The Case Manager Model: Radical Simplification

My 2013 article "Reengineering Higher Education" proposed eliminating functional silos entirely. Instead of separate admissions, advising, registration, and financial aid offices, imagine cross-functional teams owning the complete student journey.

A team of three to four faculty and staff would handle everything for their cohort: admission decisions, financial aid, course advising, registration, instruction, and graduation authorization. A 20,000-student university needs roughly 500 such teams—replacing hundreds of administrative positions while dramatically improving student experience.

This aligns with your lean principle of combining several jobs into one. But it requires reengineering first, continuous improvement second.

Where Our Frameworks Converge

Both approaches recognize information technology as transformational rather than merely supportive. We share fundamental principles: respect for people as foundational, data-driven decision making as essential, and empowerment of frontline knowledge workers as critical. The difference lies in sequence and scope.

Reengineering brings radical process redesign, elimination of non-value activities, and fundamental role redefinition. Lean contributes systematic waste identification, continuous improvement culture, and team-based problem solving. Neither framework alone suffices—but together they offer comprehensive transformation.

A Phased Transformation Approach

The most productive path combines both methodologies in deliberate sequence. The first phase applies your value stream mapping to expose systemic dysfunction, then designs future state around student value creation rather than departmental convenience. This six-month assessment develops IT infrastructure enabling the case manager model while piloting cross-functional teams in willing programs.

The second phase shifts to lean optimization within redesigned processes. Teams use A3 thinking to identify emerging waste, apply kaizen for continuous refinement, and scale successful pilots systematically. This ongoing effort builds on solid structural foundation rather than optimizing broken processes.

The third phase focuses on sustaining excellence through organizational learning capabilities, adaptation to emerging educational paradigms, and maintenance of improvement momentum. Each phase builds on previous work, creating compound benefits impossible through either approach alone.

Addressing Faculty Resistance

Mark, your observation about "departmental egoism" as a roadblock is accurate—but incomplete. Faculty resist not from obstinacy but from legitimate concerns about loss of disciplinary identity, unclear advancement paths outside traditional hierarchies, fear of becoming educational "generalists," and increased workload without support.

The solution combines both frameworks strategically. Reengineering eliminates coordination overhead consuming faculty time. Lean principles respect faculty expertise while improving support systems. Together they demonstrate how new structures enhance rather than diminish academic quality.

Consider this: when faculty spend less time navigating administrative bureaucracy, they invest more energy in teaching and research—the work that actually builds institutional reputation. The case manager model doesn't dilute faculty expertise; it liberates it from non-value activities.

Cal Poly as Living Laboratory

Eric, your "Learn by Doing" philosophy offers perfect testing ground. What if we piloted both frameworks in a single program? Imagine a cross-functional team for 100 mechanical engineering students working in shared workspace with unified information systems, clear decision rights, and appropriate resources.

Within this reengineered structure, lean practices flourish naturally. Weekly team huddles identify improvements that would remain invisible in siloed operations. Student feedback loops inform adjustments impossible when responsibility fragments across departments. Visual management of student progress replaces redundant reporting. Rapid experimentation with teaching methods becomes feasible when the team owns complete outcomes.

The pilot would demonstrate something crucial: radical structural change doesn't preclude continuous improvement—it enables it. Teams freed from coordination burden can focus on genuine value creation.

Critical Success Factors from Both Approaches

Successful transformation requires top management commitment to radical change rather than incremental adjustment. This means willingness to abandon sacred organizational structures, investment in enabling technology beyond modest upgrades, and new performance measurement systems aligned with redesigned processes.

Simultaneously, success demands gemba walks understanding actual work, faculty-led improvement teams driving change from frontline experience, systematic waste identification within new structures, and deep respect for frontline knowledge throughout transformation.

The reengineering elements create conditions for success; the lean elements sustain and amplify initial gains. Missing either component risks failure.

The Urgent Imperative

Your conclusion is correct: "It is time for higher education institutions to reinvent themselves." I add this urgency: time is not on our side. Alternative credential providers are redesigning education unburdened by traditional structures, while we debate whether to eliminate one approval layer.

Traditional universities have one decisive advantage: faculty expertise and commitment to student development. But we squander this forcing excellent educators to navigate baroque systems consuming energy better spent on teaching and research.

The question isn't whether transformation will occur—it's whether traditional institutions will lead or follow. The evidence suggests we're currently following, slowly, reluctantly, insufficiently.

Invitation to Continued Dialogue

I propose we explore these complementary frameworks together through a workshop at Cal Poly or through Central Coast Lean. We could map current processes using lean methodology, design simplified alternatives using reengineering principles, identify quick wins within existing structures, develop phased transformation roadmaps, and build coalition for systematic change.

Your Future of People at Work initiative provides perfect venue for this exploration. The intersection of reengineering and lean thinking offers comprehensive framework for the academic transformation we all recognize as necessary.

The conversation you've started through your podcast and blog deserves continuation through collaborative experimentation. Let's move from analysis to action, from discussion to demonstration, from theory to practice—embodying the "Learn by Doing" philosophy we all value.

Thank you for advancing this critical conversation.

Knowledge Map: Connecting to Your Context

Process Keywords: Radical redesign, case manager model, process reengineering, cross-functional teams, systematic elimination, structural transformation, IT enablement, organizational simplification

Context Keywords: Administrative bloat, faculty time poverty, departmental silos, compliance burden, fragmented processes, coordination overhead, student experience, enrollment complexity

Application Triggers: 

Facing 60+ hour faculty workweeks → Case manager model reducing coordination burden

Students navigating multiple disconnected offices → Integrated team ownership

Administrative growth despite faculty cuts → Radical simplification through reengineering

Incremental improvements yielding diminishing returns → Fundamental process redesign first

Related Continuous Improvement Themes: Systems thinking, respect for people, process redesign, organizational learning, change management

Continue the conversation: 

Join Central Coast Lean Virtual Lean Coffee: Second Wednesday monthly, 10 AM Pacific

Explore workshops: https://www.purpose-ccl.org/ccl-events 

Follow FPW: https://www.linkedin.com/company/future-people-work/ 

Learn more: https://www.fpwork.org/ 

Contact Enar: etunc@calpoly.edu

People to Connect With: @Eric O. Olsen @Mark Jacobs @Rachel Reuter @Enar Tunc

Further Reading: Tunç, E. A. (2013). Reengineering Higher Education. Yüksekögretim Dergisi (Journal of Higher Education), 3(1), 48-52. doi:10.2399/yod.13.004

#HigherEducation #ProcessReengineering #LeanTransformation #ContinuousImprovement #FutureOfPeopleAtWork

This response was developed by Enar A. Tunç in collaboration with Eric Olsen and Mark Jacobs, augmented with Claude.AI assistance. It represents ongoing dialogue within the Future of People at Work initiative—a collaboration of Catalysis, Central Coast Lean, GBMP Consulting Group, Imagining Excellence, Lean Enterprise Institute, Shingo Institute, The Ohio State University Center for Operational Excellence, and Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC).