Case Aalto

In a global world, companies are not the only organizations which must become more efficient. The same pressure is on universities, which must meet increasing requirements on several fronts. Students are expected to graduate faster while maintaining continuously high teaching standards and job satisfaction of both the staff and the students. As for the research done in the universities, "publish or perish" requires a steady flow of high-quality publications, which can only be achieved through efficient work in research groups.

At Finland's Aalto University, the challenge to meet the growing requirements became especially urgent when the new university was formed in 2010 by merging three separate universities: Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki School of Economics and University of Art and Design Helsinki. With its ca. 20,000 students in six schools and 4,500 staff, 400 of whom are professors, Aalto ranks 181 in global ranking and 22 in young university ranking.

Establishing Aalto meant several major changes, with higher requirements set for both the number of research publications and the completed degrees. To meet these requirements, the Corrosion and Hydrometallurgy research group coming from former Helsinki University of Technology started to look for ways to meet them. The group had participated in a number of development projects done at the university, which had yielded practically no results. The group decided to look for new alternatives. One of the Ph.D. students was familiar with the IP program, and seen the sustainable results it brought, so the professor of the group decided to give the IP program a try.

The work was started with the Business Assessment module facilitated by IP consultant Harri Gröhn. This engaged all members of the research group and gave the IP program a good start. As all identified improvement projects gave concrete and measurable results rapidly, there was no problem in keeping everyone engaged and motivated to continue the program, unlike in previous development programs where the main result was frustration of group members in amount of time wasted.

Some examples of the concrete results included:

• Time of completing Masters theses speeded up from 11 months to 6 months very rapidly after the IP program was started, and has also remained in 6 months
• Number of reference publications increased
• Better test planning reduced the number of solvent tests by 30% in two projects
• Laboratory cleanliness was improved
• Staff motivation and team spirit were significantly improved
• Staff meetings became more efficient as staff learned good meeting techniques

Senior Researcher Antero Pehkonen of the Corrosion and Hydrometallurgy research group warmly recommends the IP program. "The IP program could improve the results in every organization in Finland. It produces real, sustainable and measurable results and engages the entire organization instead of frustrating everyone with wasted efforts. I have also seen the IP produce excellent results even in the operation of a sports club."