Operational Excellence Tools Blog

Lean Healthcare trip reports

2007-09-20T02:34:00Z

I recently visited Penn State University Hershey Medical Center (HMC) and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).

HMC is applying Lean methods in the area of demand capacity matching in their emergency department. Thus far they've realized significant improvements. Here is a quick summary of the work they are doing and the results they are getting:

The application of demand and capacity matching and the clinical application of queueing theory, is an integrated process of healthcare engineering and lean processing to a problematic area of the hospital for throughput the emergency department (ED) has recently been studied at the Penn State University, Hershey Medical Center. A before and after study was designed to test the hypothesis by matching the demand of patients despite the lack of physical space to the capacity of care givers, without physical space. The ED was built for 32,00 visits, and currently sees nearly 50,000 with an average of 10 of the 27 beds filled with patients awaiting admission to the hospital (overcrowding). Placing ED physicians, near arrival with existing nursing and registration staff, optimal utilization of the Electronic medical record and queueing theory, physicians directed care upon arrival and determined clinical care needs, not just bed need. This resulted in a 23% reduction in a key parameter of throughput efficiency, ED length of stay, for all patients. This process has been termed Physician Directed Queueing (PDQTM).

These changes were observed without any change in resource availability and without any evidence of safety or quality issues. It has also been piloted in another south central PA emergency department with success.

At CHOP, the Pathology and Lab Services department are applying basic Lean methods like 5S and value stream mapping to uncover significant improvement opportunities to increase the turnaround time (TAT) on lab results which have a direct bearing on patient TAT. USC Consulting Group is helping CHOP on this endeavour. In the first 10 weeks, CHOP reduced Lab TAT by 50%. That's a staggering improvement. USC Consulting Group is now implementing a communication and collaboration technology infrastructure so CHOP can extract data from their Meditech lab information system to surface process data like cycle time, value added time, turnaround time, etc. It's arranged in scorecards using Microsoft Office SharePoint so it's fast and easy to access relevant data. It also gives them access to value stream maps and reports at their fingertips. This makes it easy for the teams to store, share, and collaborate on projects. It was quite impressive and it appears that CHOP is looking for ways to introduce this into other parts of the hospitals operations.

More trip reports and insights to come. By all means share your own.

Ingo Heel

Director, Operational Excellence Solutions, Microsoft Industry Solutions Organization

New IndustryWeek webcast: Lean at Haldex featuring Microsoft Dynamics

2007-07-27T15:35:00Z

New IndustryWeek webcast featuring a Lean leader and an IT leader from Haldex, discussing "The Haldex Way," how and why the company embarked on a Lean path, and how IT and Microsoft partner Avanade has been an enabler in the process. This story focuses not on value stream mapping but on building visibility into core plant and operational metrics and marrying these with traditional ERP.

ARCHIVE URL: http://www.industryweek.com/Webcasts/072407Eventregistration.aspx?eventID=364&ref=MSarch1

Industry Week webcast with Lockheed Martin on using software to run kaizen events more effectively

2007-05-23T20:16:00Z

IndustryWeek is sponsoring a webcast on May 31st that should be very revealing. Registration available at http://www.industryweek.com/Webcasts/053107Eventregistration.aspx?eventID=342&ref=e2.

Here is the webcast description from Industry Week:

How do you create an enterprise value stream map that truly is product centric and still allows drill-down to actionable improvements at each site? How do manage multiple products through one site while sharing resources without optimizing one product line at the detriment of another?

Join us for a one-hour webcast featuring two Black Belts from Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control, Jody A. Parker, Director Lean Six Sigma and Wenona Sublett, Lean point of contact. Hear how Lockheed Martin transitioned from paper-based processes and ad-hoc spreadsheet tools to an integrated systems approach of enterprise value stream management.

Key takeaways from this presentation will include:

· How to establish an enterprise value stream map

· Managing an organization using enterprise value stream maps

· Critical success factors in transitioning to technology supported Lean events

· The importance of 'what-if' analysis in validating future-state designs

· How to use key performance indicators (KPIs) to audit and report on enterprise value stream performance

www.kanban.com is now live

2007-05-10T19:11:00Z

Ultriva has launched their hosted, subscription based eKanban service at www.kanban.com. It's a .NET enabled online service for small to medium sized manufacturers to better align inventory and production with actual customer demand. It includes a wizard-based interface making it very easy to use. This service could democratize the transition from push-based, forecasting based business models to pull-based, customer demand oriented business models for manufacturers that otherwise might not be able to afford a full blown enterprise scale collaborative electronic kanban solution.

Ultriva User's Conference highlights

2007-05-10T18:52:00Z

In Cupertino, CA today at the Ultriva User's Conference listening to a many customer case study presentations from Emerson Electric, Rexnord, and Dover Inc. What is most compelling in the talks is why each company is using Lean. OK International started on their Lean journey in 2001 to improve customer responsiveness. They've moved delivery times from 6 weeks to 2 weeks using a Lean approach. In fact, OKI never even did manual kanban. They went directly to eKanban to enable that change. OKI discovered Ultriva because one of their top suppliers was also a supplier to Emerson Electric which uses Ultriva. They told OKI that they are a lousy customer and they should seriously consider eKanban from Ultriva. That was one of the main reasons why OKI went directly to eKanban knowing the results Emerson was getting.

Emerson's goal is to have all 31,000 suppliers onto the Ultriva eKanban system by end of September 2008. Emerson is using a shared services IT model to support the roll-out. This helps them integrate with the variety of MRP systems in use around the world. Emerson's roll-out is very ambitious. They are doing supplier kanban, customer kanban, and internal kanban. Schedule-based replenishment is on the horizon.

IndustryWeek webcast on Enterprise Value Stream Mapping & Analysis

2007-05-05T00:01:00Z

On May 31st, Lockheed Martin will be conducting a webcast hosted by IndustryWeek. Lockheed Martin apparently has transformed their entire approach to conducting kaizen events through the use of software tools like LeanView from the Orlando Software Group. The registration site is http://www.industryweek.com/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=342&ref=MIC2.

A refreshing outlook on 'New Millennium' Lean

2007-04-03T19:37:00Z

USC Consulting Group (www.usccg.com) has written a very thorough whitepaper describing how technology augments traditional Lean methods, but also argues that technology is a requirement to make a full Lean transformation. The link to the document is http://www.usccg.com/Ref/USCMillenniumBroch.pdf.

Microsoft announces Microsoft Dynamics Industry Solution for Lean Enterprises

2007-03-21T19:13:00Z

Details available at

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2007/mar07/03-13ConvergenceDayTwoPR.mspx.

Lean commentary from major commercial aviation OEMs

2007-03-20T22:01:00Z

Here at the SpeedNews Aviation Suppliers Conference in LA, interesting comments on lean from Airbus and Boeing:

Airbus - site setup and configuration based on lean techniques are a major pillar of Airbus' Power8 restructuring plan, allowing them to achieve efficiency while reducing the magnitude of cuts in the blue-collar workforce.

Boeing - Just saw a video showing the engineering simulation of final assembly for the 787 at their Everett plant - they are targeting a 3-day flow for 787 final assembly, which is amazing keeping in mind that the airplane is almost 100% outsourced - the only assembly that Boeing builds is the vertical stabilizer.

- Marc from the Lean Team

Podcast of last weekend's radio show on using six sigma to improve energy efficiency

2007-03-14T16:31:00Z

Podcast of six sigma segment from Corning on last weekend's America's Business with Mike Hambrick show. Again highlights the use of Visio as a tool in implementing process improvements.

Podcast is here.

How Corning used Six Sigma to improve energy efficiency - this weekend's topic on America's Business with Mike Hambrick

2007-03-10T01:22:00Z

This weekend another radio segment airs on America's Business with Mike Hambrick on how Corning used Six Sigma (DMAIC), supported by Microsoft technology tools such as Visio and our partner Itron, to achieve the following objectives:

§ Assure uninterrupted supply of energy to BSD facilities.

§ Reduce the total direct cost of energy as impacted by consumption and price

§ Reduce consumption through the use of energy management tools and processes.

§ Develop a rigorous sustainable process to manage energy effectively

Here are the details:

Segment Title: Incorporating Six Sigma Methodologies to Develop and Sustain the Business Services Division Energy Management Process

Dates: March 10 – 11, 2007

Interviewees:

1. Jon Arnold – Microsoft - Global Utilities Industry Director | Microsoft Corporation

2. Philip Mezey – ITRON - Senior Vice President of Software Solutions

3. Scott Ryan - Corning – Global Energy Manager

A podcast will be posted here on Monday.

Upcoming webinar on the impact of software on lean transformation efforts

2007-03-08T23:09:00Z

...featuring the Harbour-Felax Group and Activplant, March 28, 2007.

Details at: https://lra100.livemeeting.com/LRSRegistration/EC/activplant/638697426.aspx

A new book for Lean Product Development

2007-03-08T20:31:00Z

Last week at the Lean Transformation Summit, Prof. Durward Sobek of Montana State University, gave a presentation about a new book just published called "Lean Product and Process Development" authored by Allen Ward. I think you'll find the book to contain some breakthrough thinking on applying lean thinking to product development. A link with more info on the book is http://www.lean.org/Bookstore/ProductDetails.cfm?SelectedProductID=159

Bill Gates on American Competitiveness

2007-03-08T20:08:00Z

From shopfloor.org: Microsoft Chairman and CEO Bill Gates appeared before the Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee yesterday to testify on the topic of US competitiveness, a topic in which he is well-versed.

Link to the full post at http://blog.nam.org/archives/2007/03/bill_gates_test.php

Interesting article on Lockheed Martin's LM21 management philosophy combining lean and six sigma

2007-03-07T18:07:00Z

...from Defense Acquisition Review at www.dau.mil/pubs/arq/2004arq/Joyce.pdf

A couple of years old but still a good read.