Pawley Institute Fellowships help OU professors further Lean learning

Last winter, the Oakland University Pawley Lean Institute awarded Pawley Institute Fellowships to four OU professors, who have since made great progress with their projects.

These awards were given to help support research to advance knowledge and theories of Lean learning and facilitate the work of university faculty to educate students about Lean principles.

The recipients are Mark Doman, visiting assistant professor in Human Resource Development; Bob Van Til, professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering; Shannon Flumerfelt, associate professor in Educational Leadership; and Gene Fliedner, associate professor of Operations Management within the Decision and Information Science department.

Each professor was given $15,000 to work on education, research and outreach projects of their design.

Professor Doman is currently working on expanding and developing new Lean curriculum for OU. He has already developed a new undergraduate course, HRD 344: Kaizen in Action, and has begun work on two Lean kaizen projects at the university. He is also publishing a blog to keep the community informed on his current class, HRD 304: Lean Principles and Practices in Organizations.

Professor Fliedner has developed an academic textbook for the graduate and undergraduate levels. The book, Leading and Managing the Lean Management Process, focuses on leadership, culture, team and tools. Fliedner’s textbook is now available on Amazon. He also donated his book to two locations at OU: the Pawley Institute Collection at the Education Resources Lab and Kresge Library, which both hold more books about Lean. He plans to follow this with an updated second edition.

Professor Flumerfelt’s fellowship project is focused on creating virtual Lean games for students to play in Second Life. The games are Lean Poker, The Dolie Factory and Push/Pull. Through these games, Flumerfelt wishes to positively affect the learning outcomes and experience of the students.

Professor Van Til is using his fellowship to develop and monitor Lean projects; he plans to use them as case studies to help teach students in his ISE classes. Through his most recent project, Van Til helped Crittenton Hospital Medical Center relocate their warehouse using Lean principles. The project was estimated to save Crittenton over $580,000 in the first year alone.

These four professors, through the fellowships, are working to spread Lean principles throughout OU and the community.

For more information, visit oakland.edu/lean.