The University of Aberdeen has become one of the first higher education institutes in the country to implement LEAN thinking as one of a package of measures being taken to ensure its library, especially its new £57million library building, is as efficient and green as possible.

Led by a LEAN Kaizen specialist and performance coach, the programme involved bringing together a team of library staff to look in detail at "the journey of a book" from customer request to getting it onto a shelf.

With a library of 1.2million books in print format, an additional 500,000 in electronic format and a staff of 150, the process was seen as ideal for the LEAN Kaizen intervention.

Pat Browne, of performance improvement specialists Exceed, has tailored the LEAN Kaizen approach, developed in Japan to improve company efficiency, for initiatives with a number of public and private sector organisations. The approach emphasises workforce involvement and helps staff to optimise efficiency resulting in better services for customers.

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Chris Banks, University Librarian and Director of Library and Historic Collections, said: "We are building a stunning library and wanted to look at how we can work as efficiently within it as possible. The Kaizen approach has helped us think not only about current processing activities but also been very useful in planning for the operation in the new building.

"There are nine floors and we felt that there was no point in people and books going up and down in lifts as they go through processing when they do not need to. So as part of the planning process for the new building we have moved offices around and have taken other steps, including our LEAN Kaizen project, to minimise book miles. Reducing lift journeys, etc, is reducing our carbon footprint even more in what is a very environmentally friendly building."

Aberdeen University’s iconic new library will provide facilities for the institution’s 14,000 student community, replacing the existing library built when the University had only 5,000 students on campus.

The new library will also be a showcase for a 200,000 strong collection of historic books and over 4,000 manuscript and archival collections. Building work is underway and it is scheduled to open to students, local communities and other visitors in autumn 2011.

(GK)