Student admissions process In order to apply for admission to I-PU, students first complete an online form, available via I-PU’s website. Online applications are recorded in I-PU’s Student Registration system, an information system to which all staff members involved in the admissions process have access. After a student has submitted the online form, a PDF document is automatically generated and then automatically sent as an email requesting the student download, sign, and return it by post together with the required documents, which include: 

• Certified copies of the previous degree and academic transcripts 

• Results of the English language test 

• Curriculum vitae. When these documents are received by the Admissions officer, that officer checks the completeness of the documents. If any document is missing, the officer sends an e-mail to the student, reminding the student to send the missing documents by post. If the missing documents are not received within 2 weeks, the application is canceled, with the student being informed they must restart a new application if they wish to try again. Once all the application documents have been received, the admissions office sends the certified copies of the degree to an Academic Recognition Agency by courier (at a $25 dollar cost), which checks the degrees and gives an assessment of their validity and equivalence in terms of local education standards. This check costs $245 per prospective student, and the agency requires that all certified copies of the originals are sent to it by post. 

The agency also uses the postal service to send its assessment results to the university. If the degree verification is negative, the process ends with an “Unsuccessful application” email sent to the student. Where the degree verification is successful, the English language test results are then checked online by an Admissions officer. If the validity of the English language test results cannot be verified, the application is rejected (such notifications of rejection are sent by e-mail). Once all documents of a given student have been validated, the admission office collates and forwards these documents by internal mail to the corresponding academic committee, which is responsible for deciding whether to offer admission or not. The committee makes its decision based on the academic transcripts and the CV. The committee meets once every 2 to 3 weeks and examines all applications that are ready for academic assessment at the time of the meeting. At the end of the committee meeting, the chair of the committee notifies the admissions office of the selection outcomes. This notification includes a list of admitted and rejected candidates. The Admissions Officer notifies the outcome to each candidate via e-mail, typically a few days later. Additionally, successful candidates are then sent a confirmation letter by post. An Admissions officer is paid $40/hour.

Consider the following three process improvement possibilities:

1. Blockchain technology enables verifiable digital copies of all documents to be sent. As such, I-PU integrates its online application and student registration systems, drastically reducing timelines due to student error rates and repeated requests for information to students because the system can now verify that the correct documents have been received. The cycle and processing times for each of these registration and checking activities now reduce to 1 minute. This also leads to increased student satisfaction with the application process and reduces the amount of checking the Admissions officer has to do.
2. I-PU provides the Academic Recognition Agency with approver access privileges to its student registration system. This accelerates the approvals process and eliminates the cost of sending certified copies by courier.
3. The English language test is conducted before sending the application to the Academic Recognition Agency.

For questions a) to d) below, use the table provided to answer:
a) Which of the 8 Lean wastes are likely to be behind the issues being addressed by these improvements?

b) Which performance measure(s) are affected by these (Hint: consider the Devil’s Quadrangle)?

c) Is the effect positive or negative?

d) Which Process Redesign heuristic is behind each of these changes?
NB: there may be more than one heuristic behind each improvement, so please insert additional lines for each listed improvement option (1, 2, 3) as needed!