Operational Excellence Tools Blog : lean manufacturing

Lean Healthcare trip reports

LeanTeam — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 02:34:00 GMT

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

LeanTeam — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 15:35:00 GMT

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

www.kanban.com is now live

LeanTeam — Thu, 10 May 2007 19:11:00 GMT

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

LeanTeam — Thu, 10 May 2007 18:52:00 GMT

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

LeanTeam — Sat, 05 May 2007 00:01:00 GMT

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

LeanTeam — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:37:00 GMT

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

LeanTeam — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 19:13:00 GMT

Details available at

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

Lean commentary from major commercial aviation OEMs

LeanTeam — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 22:01:00 GMT

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

Upcoming webinar on the impact of software on lean transformation efforts

LeanTeam — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 23:09:00 GMT

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

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

New case study - Gates Corporation enabling continuous improvement with Sharepoint

LeanTeam — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:54:00 GMT

New case study published on Gates Corporation - details how they are using various Microsoft technologies such as Sharepoint to standardize work, improve information access, and push KPIs and transparency throughout the organization.

Excerpt: "To enforce consistent business processes, executive management and division leaders create annual objectives that correlate to pillars of the Gates Business Leadership Process, a permanent model for continuous improvement at Gates. These objectives are easily accessible through the portal. What’s more, managers can log on to their KPI list in the Unity portal and see red, yellow, or green lights indicating the status of each objective. Team members scope out their work (mapped to their division leader’s annual objectives) in 90-day action plans and can readily see how close they are to meeting the action plans."

Case study is published at http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=200899

New podcast of Lean segment from Feb 10-11 America's Business radio show

LeanTeam — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 06:00:00 GMT

Podcast of the Lean segment from last weekend's America's Business with Mike Hambrick show is now available at http://marcmonp.members.winisp.net/podcasts/AB_FEB10_SEG3%20Lean%20Segment-1.wma

Lean solutions director Ingo Heel and Just Born Foods profiled on NAM America's Business Radio show this weekend !

LeanTeam — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 23:34:00 GMT

Tune in to the National Association of Manufacturers weekly radio show America's Business with Mike Hambrick this weekend on Feb 10-11 for a segment on Lean Manufacturing. Interviews include Ingo Heel, Lean Solutions Director for Microsoft, and a profile of Just Born Foods' success story presented by USC Consulting Group.

For a list of stations and broadcast times, go to http://www.nam.org/s_nam/doc1.asp?CID=202321&DID=237382

Stay tuned for podacsts after the segment airs!

- Marc from the Lean Team

Emerson is tackling inventory turns with technology

LeanTeam — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 21:08:00 GMT

Check out the IndustryWeek webcast from January called Emerson Lean: From Strategy to Execution. It's presented by Ray Keefe, VP of Manufacturing at Emerson and Ashley Stirrup, CEO of Ultriva. What is especially insightful is how Emerson has figured out how to tackle the "bullwhip" issue. The recording is available at

http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=34065&s=1&k=6C52E41DBC0181EF537FCFE2BFD2DD78.

5s for the Information Worker

LeanTeam — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 20:33:00 GMT

Over the recent holidays, I embarked on a backup, cleanup, and Office 2007 upgrade for my PC. As part of the process, I realized that it would be a good idea to take a look at the 5s concept from an information worker perpsective, since e-mail and spreadsheets are the "tools" and "dies" used by many in the corporate world today, including many lean practitioners.

Classic definition of 5s, quoted from the iSixSigma glossary at http://www.isixsigma.com/dictionary/5S-486.htm

Seiri - Put things in order (remove what is not needed and keep what is needed)
Seiton - Proper Arrangement (Place things in such a way that they can be easily reached whenever they are needed)
Seiso - Clean (Keep things clean and polished; no trash or dirt in the workplace)
Seiketsu - Purity (Maintain cleanliness after cleaning - perpetual cleaning)
Shitsuke - Commitment (Actually this is not a part of '4S', but a typical teaching and attitude towards any undertaking to inspire pride and adherence to standards established for the four components)

I evaluated the relevance of these concepts for an information worker, and rated my own performance in some of these areas:

1. My laptop, combined with my smartphone and my corporate Exchange server, is essentially my "workspace." I have over 4 gigbytes of e-mail and documents just from the current fiscal year at Microsoft - is my workspace clean and "in order"? Can I find what I need even with a powerful tool such as Windows Desktop Search? How could I use the capabilities of Windows Vista to help find, use, and share information?

2. I am highly mobile and work both with internal Microsoft staff as well as with a variety of external partners and suppliers. Have I chosen the right way to organize, communicate, and publish key data so that the right data is accessible at the right time, online or offline, to the constituents who need it? Are the tools I need at my fingertips? Was I truly using the full capabilities of Outlook, Sharepoint, Groove, and Windows Mobile to make my life easier? I think this point has a lot of commonality with many lean leaders who manage or mentor a virtual team, and face the challenge of reporting data both at the shop floor or even PLC level and doing rollups for executive managment.

3. Have I set up standard processes to automate analysis and reporting, and establish workflows for my virtual team as much as possible?

4. Have I secured my data in such a way as to enable access for the right people while minimizing risk? In many ways this is part of the "sustain" tenet of 5s, and some companies have explicitly added safety and security as a "5s plus" concept.

In an ongoing series, I'll be jotting notes on ways I have found to create simple solutions to some of these challenges using the tools I already have on my desktop. I hope this will helpful for lean or six sigma professionals who face similar challenges.

- Marc from the Lean Team

Join me at the Lean Transformation Summit

LeanTeam — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 22:25:00 GMT

Join me in attending this conference...several of the companies speaking are using software and tools built on the Microsoft platform to enable their lean initiatives. As a former black belt for a service business at GE, I am particularly interested in hearing a current perspective on the success of their blended lean and six sigma thinking.

- Marc from the Lean Team

Lean Transformation Summit 2007
February 28 - March 1, Atlanta

This conference is designed to help you learn from leaders and implementers who are pioneering new applications in lean thinking and moving beyond isolated islands to create lean enterprises. In plenary sessions, you'll hear company executives describe the essential business cases for launching a lean transformation, whether to improve profits and profitability or to create customer intimacy. They will also discuss why they use lean as a strategy and the experience of transforming the entire business. In subsequent breakout sessions, implementers from each company will follow up on the plenary discussion by providing detailed descriptions of how to's, what obstacles were overcome, and what results were achieved.

Click here for to learn more, download the brochure, and register.