Four Principles in partnership with Community Jameel Saudi and the General Administration of Education conclude school enhancement project in Saudi Arabia
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
The aim of the project was to redesign the school’s operating model, building new methods, competencies, and proficiencies which allow students, teachers, and school management to improve performance, achieve higher competitiveness and raise levels of efficiency.
The Four Principles team achieved this goal by providing the school’s management with the tools and enablers to apply Lean management principles, recrafting a new mentality that extends beyond the school to impact the daily lives of the students, parents, and teachers. Consequently, the school is equipped with the pathway to design and foster a new future by applying a scientific approach based on Lean management principles.
Through the initiatives that were implemented, Four Principles in collaboration with the school were able to free up the educational officer’s time by more than 320 hours allowing additional focus on catering to students’ needs and enhancing academic performance. This was made possible via the development of scheduling software which supports the school in allocating courses and teachers to classes throughout the school’s calendar year and class levels. A tool is an automated software addressing a significant amount of data and a high level of complexity based on a Four Principles algorithm designed specifically for the school’s needs.
Furthermore, the different solutions developed for the school increased the effectiveness of the supporting departments’ procedures which boosted their capacity. This also reduced procurement costs by 15%, maintenance costs by 5%, and the average calls to parents regarding fee collection by 44%. Four Principles also unlocked the school’s promotional capabilities by leveraging the Net Promotor Score index and the corresponding feedback loop. Last but not least, the program planted the seeds of curiosity for continuous improvement among the students.
This program is an initial stage for a broader scope in the future to include other schools across the kingdom. Lessons and experiences gained through this project will be utilized to improve its application during the rollout to other schools, thus spreading the mentality of continuous improvement across the schools in the Kingdom.
All the parties involved in this program are proud of the results that were achieved in enabling the continuous improvement approach “Kaizen” in Saudi schools by building on the foundations of Lean management.
Mansour Al-Qahtani, Principal of the Secondary Department at Qurtubah Private School, Jeddah, said: “The project consisted of a variety of initiatives and positive results. For example, the comprehensive employee initiative resulted in time and effort reductions as well as obtaining client satisfaction. Similarly, the scheduling tool initiative was able to reduce the scheduling time drastically, and the voice of the customer initiative was a great experience to improve the client-related processes”
Abdalla Aly Taleb Abd Elrahman Abou Anza, Manager for Social Initiatives at Community Jameel Saudi, said:” We aspire with the Ministry of Education to transfer this experience to a large group of schools in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”.
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Four Principles, Seif Shieshakly said: “We are delighted by the success of this initiative as we were able to transfer the Kaizen mindset to all participants from the school and achieve tangible performance improvements and students’ satisfaction enhancements that went beyond everyone’s expectations.