Improving the Success Rate of Lean-Themed Internships

Overview & Synopsis

In the context of lean education, industry-university collaborations are an important mechanism for promoting knowledge exchange and fueling innovation. An important element of these collaborations are internships, which allow students to practice the transition from university to work while concurrently introducing or reinforcing existing lean knowledge in the organization. To train students to become young, skilled professionals, a practical learning experience is essential. The chances of dropping out of an internship can be reduced by a good approach in the context of a successful industry-university collaboration. Four elements make an industry-university collaboration successful. Those elements are institutional-, relational-, output- and framework factors and contribute to students completing internships successfully.The present study documents the working mechanisms that result in successful lean-themed internships. First, meaning is given to the concept of success from the concurrent perspective of student, institution, and company. Subsequently cases are compared to identify elements that make the industry-university collaboration successful. Using a multiple case approach, the case of Care Simplifiers, an industry-university collaboration between Amphia hospital and Avans University of Applied Sciences is compared to other industry-university collaborations.