Improving the student academic experience through lean engineering principles

Higher education institutions often describe goals for the student experience as a whole as well as define and guide the academic requirements to earn a degree. This paper seeks to ignite discussions on how lean engineering principles can improve the collegiate student´s academic or educational experience. We explain how the principles that drive lean engineering can be operationalized in the context of engineering student success centers (ESSC) to obtain data driven evidence on aspects of its program, improve retention focused initiatives of the center, and reduce waste which allows for a more efficient use of resources. In this paper, the term `engineering student success centers´ includes both minority and women in engineering programs as well as similar programs that provide academic services to undergraduate students, often underrepresented, in engineering. Recognizing that each of these programs offer a diverse and unique set of services, the conceptual approach described in this paper can be applied either directly or with minor modifications to their operations. We consider the student as the customer of these programs who seeks true value from his/her college experience. Therefore, lean engineering principles are advocated with the goals of improving student (customer) value, minimizing waste, and promoting efficiency and productivity.