Aurora Grishaj, a Human Resource Development student, at her 2025 internship at Forgotten Harvest. (Photo courtesy Dennis Wade)
Alex Ligeski, an Industrial and Systems Engineering student, at his 2025 summer internship at University of Michigan Health - Sparrow. (Photo courtesy Dennis Wade)
June 16, 2025
The first Oakland University - Pawley Lean Institute Community Service Internship started in the fall of 2019. The program was an innovative partnership between the Pawley Lean Institute and Boston’s Lean Enterprise Institute.
The initiative was developed to put “Lean Thinking” into projects at non-profit, community service organizations. This would provide an opportunity for an Oakland University (OU) student to earn money via an internship and strengthen their resume with the completed project. The community service organization would implement a more efficient process through the completed project and any funder to the program would meet its community service outreach vision.
The Bosch Community Fund, the corporate foundation for Bosch in North America, joined as a funder to the program in 2021. The community outreach, student participation, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) elements met the mission of the foundation.
“We saw the tangible benefit of the student teams working with mentors and using Lean tools to reduce process waste as educational to the students, effective means to improve performance for a community service organization, and the unique outreach by the Pawley Lean Institute as attractive to us,” said Eve Haley, manager, Bosch Community Fund.
“We particularly liked the mentorship of an industry professional partnered with an Oakland University professor as a benefit to the two-person student teams,” added Haley.
The students must present findings and recommendations via a midpoint and final presentation during the 10-week program. The presentations include the students, OU representatives, the student mentors, community service contacts, and usually the program funders.
“The Bosch Community Fund has sat in on these presentations, asked questions to our students, and promoted the program within their entity,” said Dennis Wade, director of the Pawley Lean Institute. “We have several partners supporting the Lean Community Internships, and Bosch is now our largest funder.”
Other partners include the Lean Enterprise Institute, Jabil, and the Mark and Paula Doman Foundation.
The support of the Bosch Community Fund and other funding partners has allowed the program to expand from initially two projects a year to four projects a year, plus three summer internships. Projects and internships have been completed at Humble Design, Leader Dogs for the Blind, Fleece and Thank You, Rose Hill Center, McLaren – Oakland Hospital, Sparrow Hospital (Lansing), Forgotten Harvest, and Pontiac Lighthouse.
“Having students actually earn the money and complete the project serves as not only an accomplishment but an opportunity for students to understand the importance of community service,” Haley said.
At the end of the 2025 summer, the program will have included 28 completed projects/internships and students will have earned $140,000 since 2019.
“What a great way for students to be able to pay some of the costs associated with a college education, update their resumes, and demonstrate Lean skills for future employment upon graduation,” said Dennis Pawley, founder of the Pawley Lean Institute. “I am just tickled to see the success of this program within the Institute.”
For more information about the Pawley Lean Institute, visit www.oakland.edu/lean.