Slimming down the accreditation process: Using Lean Six sigma to improve quality documentation

The pursuit of national and international accreditation is critical for the recognition and ranking of newly established Saudi universities. However, the accreditation process requires extensive documentation of educational and administrative activities, which requires careful coordination and planning for timely collection, analysis, and reporting. Unfortunately, university-based eternal quality improvement programs are rarely amenable to those requirements and their associated timelines. This paper proposes Lean Six Sigma methodology as a tool to identify and address waste in the process of producing the necessary documents for accreditation.