Lean Research

Approach

Our research approach has a number of dimensions and encompasses the traditional academic activities as well as applied research (see Action Research below).  Many of our research projects involve working with organisations in the application of lean techniques, or in developing and adapting tools to new circumstances. In particular, our research explores the implications of applying the lean approach to the whole value stream and across industries and sectors.

Projects generally last from one to three years, though we regularly undertake a number of shorter pilot projects.  Funding for research is obtained directly from sponsoring organisations, which include businesses, government bodies and other research agencies.

Typically, our research approach is applied and collaborative in nature, working with a group of organisations (or occasionally one) in a collective effort, often with cross functional research teams, to identify and implement solutions to a wide range of business challenges.  Our sponsors and partners tend to be organisations that embrace the opportunity to become involved in leading-edge research that can provide a radical breakthrough in some aspect of the business to improve performance or competitive advantage.  We aim to pursue research of international excellence for its quality and impact on both academic and business communities.

Action Research

Action research is a rather broad term used to describe academic research with practical orientation. It is the process of identifying, analysing, tackling and redefining problems in a practical context. The action researcher is intent on contributing both to advance the academic boundaries of knowledge and to the practical concerns of organisations; the former is the product of studying the latter. Action research was initially introduced by Kurt Lewin as a strategy for research leading to industrial and social action. In Lewin’s theory the researcher participates in the process of change as a facilitator, catalyst or agent (Lewin, 1946). Action research is learning by doing and during study of the change process the researchers examine various intervention techniques and refine their learning in a continuous plan-do-check-act cycle. What differentiates action research from other types of problem solving and pure consultancy is the attention to theory guided intervention, continuous refinement of methodologies and techniques, transparent communication and documentation of the research protocols (consultants tend to hide this as their core competency) as well as epistemological considerations for extreme relevance. (Zokaei, 2008)

In action research, the role of the investigator is to facilitate the process of change, to understand the problem and the solutions, and to translate their understanding into academic knowledge. Although contribution to knowledge is through observation and facilitation of the change process, academic reporting of the findings and academic contribution remain the prime objective. There is a continuum of action research from positivist to constructivist. Action research has striking resemblence with Systems Thinking (e.g. soft systems approach promoted by Chekland) and Lean Thinking. Checkland (1999) contends “action research should be conducted in such a way that the whole process is subsequently recoverable by any one interested in critically scrutinizing the research. This means declaring explicitly, at the start of the research, the intellectual frameworks and the process of using them which will be used to define what counts as knowledge in this piece of research”. (Zokaei, 2008)

Getting Involved

LERC welcomes approaches by organisations that want to consider involvement in a research programme.  Projects need to fund research staff time, their expenses and general consumables and a contribution to the general university overhead is also required.  Sometimes project costs can be shared by a research council grant and in-kind contributions from organisations are taken into account.  Clearly, there are significant economies to be gained when several organisations collectively fund a project.

Generally, while there are significant mutual benefits for all parties involved in the research and the following questions need to be borne in mind when considering a project:

• Does it fit in with an existing LERC research theme (or could it be considered as a new theme)?
• Can the organisation identify several ‘research questions’ that a project could address?
• Is the organisation prepared to have the project’s findings published (anonymised if necessary)?