Identification of Waste Based on Lean Principles as the Way towards Sustainability of a Higher Education Institution: A Case Study from Indonesia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors should provide Graphical Abstract.

Authors should consider moving Tables 5, 6, and 7 to supplementary information.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear respected authors,

The methods, procedures, and steps of the research have been done logically. The results are interesting and valuable. However, according to the reviewer’s point of view, some major comments would improve the quality of this manuscript as the following:

- The Abstract has been well written and it reflects the summary of all the contents that have been done in the manuscript it mentions the obtained results through the study in a good way but not enough. Therefore, it is suggested to bring a precise note from the obtained results in the Abstract section. 

- In the Introduction section, the aims of the study have been mentioned in different parts that are better to be integrated. For instance, Line 155 to 157 talk about the aim, whereas in lines 176 to 182 all the aims have been mentioned completely. 

- In the introduction section, line 104, 6 categories have been mentioned but in the sentence, it has been written five. It is suggested to recheck it.

- Line 164 and 165 contain a sentence, which is a “Cliché” in scientific articles. It is recommended not to use such a sentence, especially, when a better sentence has been mentioned in lines 173 and 174 related to this content.

- Lines 167 and 168 contain “five sustainable development activities”, but six activities have been mentioned after that.

- One of the main issues in this article is using acronyms/abbreviations. There are many errors related to this issue some of them are listed in the following. It is recommended to check the whole text from this point of view. In addition, it is recommended to add a Nomenclature section before the Introduction section.

• Line 14: HEI has been used, where for the first time in Line 14 it is mentioned completely.
• Line 82: The complete name of the MCDM has not been mentioned.
• Line 115: The full name of the FMEA has been mentioned as “Failure mode effect analysis”, but in lines 15 and 26, it is mentioned as “Failure mode and effect analysis”. Please find the correct one and correct this mistake.
• Line 123: “O” has been defined as the “occurrence”, and the same letter has been used for “attributes i and j are unrelated”. It is suggested to use dissimilar letters.
• Line 185: FETT has been used for “Faculty of Teacher and Training Education. Why the authors have not used FTTE for that? By the way, it is not an error or mistake. Please consider it as the reviewer's concern.
• In lines 122, 124, and 125, the RPN, w-FMEA, and WPN have been introduced. Therefore, there is no need to repeat them in lines 191, 196, and 197.

- In the Result section, lines 213 to 218, contain the aims of the study that have been mentioned previously completely. It is suggested to talk about the results in the result section and move the aims of the study to the related section.

- Sub-section 3.2 mainly contains the methodology and the used methods, that are recommended to be moved to Section 2 which contains Materials and Methods. In this section mainly the results should be mentioned and explained. 

- In the Conclusion section, in line 397, some limitations should be mentioned, but the second point in the related paragraph is not a real limitation. In addition, it may not be considered as a suggestion. The paragraph of the limitations should be rewritten.  

- Referencing should be controlled in the whole manuscript. There are some mistakes as the following related to this issue.

• Line 154: Double referencing is written as “[18], [19]” but the correct one is written as the way used in line 130 ([32, 33])

- There are some mistypes in this manuscript and it is recommended to check the whole text. Just some examples are mentioned here:

• Line 198: It is mentioned, “FE & FETT” but in line 218, “FIE and FETT” has been used. There is an issue for using “&” and/or “and”, and there is an issue for using “FIE” instead of “FE”.
• Line 229: Once the authors used “18” and once they used “Eighteen”. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors, you presented paper : Identification of waste based on lean principles as the way towards sustainability of a higher education institution: a case study from Indonesia.

This paper presents interesting and up-to-date research issues. Literature overview is correctly presented. Methods should be more clear, as well as the main goals of the paper.

I think all of the tables should be presented in appendix because of two reasons- 1. better readability of paper; 2. more interesting to readers

Instead of this tables, summarize most important findings and present in one table.

Discussion is correctly presented.

Literature is referenced correctly. 

All the best,

Reviewer

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The reviewed paper is interesting and concerns an important issue. The research process is understandable and described in detail. The use of the Failure mode effect analysis (FMEA), Interpretative Structural Modeling (ISM), and the MICMAC analysis in research are interesting. The research shows an important conclusion that Lean principles in HEI contribute positively to sustainability performance. To improve the study, I propose to make some changes.

The authors have written that fifteenth department heads in FE & FETT were asked to complete the questionnaire. Such a small study group limits inference.

A valuable element in a scientific study is formulating a research hypothesis.

I suggest expanding the discourse to include selected literature references.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Manuscript may be accepted as they have addressed the concerns.

Author Response

Thank you for your feedback.

Reviewer 2 Report

All the comments have been answered patiently and the manuscript has been modified precisely, accordingly. Therefore, the revised version of the manuscript is worth to be published in the respected Journal of Sustainability.

Author Response

Thank you for your feedback.