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October 2016 HBR article, Why Leadership Training Fails-and What to Do About It, calls the $160 Billion spent on training in the U.S. the Great Training Robbery. The authors say: “Learning doesn’t lead to better organizational performance, because people soon revert to their old ways of doing things.”
Unfortunately, this is true of most Six Sigma training courses. If you don’t apply what you’ve learned immediately to reducing delay, defects and deviation, the learning is lost in 72 hours.
That’s why my Lean Six Sigma workshops focus on solving real problems using existing data. Once people connect the methods and tools to results, it’s hard to go backward.
Continue Reading "The Great Training Robbery"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Lean, Manufacturing, Service, Six Sigma.
I got a call from a QI Macros customer who works at a luxury car dealership. Customers were upset because their cars were spending too long in the shop. The dealership tracked the length of stay of every car, the symptoms and barriers to getting the car done when expected.
I was struck by the similarities between what he was describing and a hospital. Patients come in, get diagnosed, treated, admitted and eventually discharged. This is the same problem as the maintenance shop.
I asked if the maintenance department had information about the type of problem, missing parts, age of the car and so on.
Continue Reading "How is a Hospital Like a Car Dealership?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Lean, QI Macros, Service, Six Sigma.
This month’s issue of Money Magazine discusses the 21 Most Valuable Career Skills. At the top of the list, statistical analysis increasing pay by 6.1%. Right behind statistical analysis is Data Mining at 5.1%. It’s incredibly easy to learn these two skills using QI Macros and Six Sigma.
Also on the list, Customer Service Metrics (4.3%). I have found that the written comments in customer service systems can be easily analyzed using the QI Macros Word Count tool to identify the most common type of call or complaint. Then simple root cause analysis can reduce or eliminate those calls.
Business analysis (3.8%) is easy with QI Macros Control Chart Dashboards.
Continue Reading "Most Valuable Career Skills"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Lean, Manufacturing, QI Macros, Service, Six Sigma.
Like a lot of people, I used to put my taxes off until the last minute. Then I’d grind away for a whole weekend getting the paperwork together and entered into my tax software. Boy that was dumb.
In the last few years I’ve started buying my tax software early and inputting every W-2 and 1099 when it comes in. When the last bit of paperwork comes in, I compare this year with last year, fix any glitches and I’m ready to file.
This is a Lean approach to handling my taxes. I handle everything, just in time, as it comes in.
Continue Reading "Lean for Tax Preparation"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Lean.
Almost every hospital storage room I’ve seen uses one color of kanban storage bin. This makes it harder to find what you want unless you know where it is. What if hospitals used colored kanban bins for the their two-bin kanban system (one in use, one for backup)? Red for blood; yellow for urinary, blue for respiratory? Wouldn’t that make it much easier to find needed supplies?
Colored kanban storage bins for hospital supplies
Continue Reading "Color Kanban for Hospitals"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Lean, Service.
At IHI 2015, the National Patient Safety Foundation released its new report Free From Harm. Download from www.npsf.org/free-from-harm. The nuts-and-bolts of the report: patient safety is still a big problem. The report recommends eight steps to rapidly improve patient safety.
Some hospitals are already using “High Reliability Healthcare” methods (Lean, Six Sigma and Change Management) to drive harm to ZERO. Memorial Hermann Hospital has had ZERO hospital acquired infections (HAIs) for multiple years. ZERO complications from blood transfusions. Memorial Hermann made Patient Safety their CORE VALUE and has pursued it relentlessly. And they are not alone.
The new standard for patient safety is ZERO defects, mistakes and errors.
Continue Reading "Hospital’s New Goal – Zero Harm"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Lean, Service, Six Sigma.
The July-August 2015 Harvard Business Review has an article by Particia McDonald, Robert Mecklenburg, MD. and Lindsay Martin on how Intel is driving reduction in health care costs. Intel was projecting that healthcare costs would hit $1 Billion a year in 2012.
Using Virginia Mason’s approach to Lean Healthcare, Intel worked with Cigna and a newly formed Healthcare Marketplace Collaborative (HMC), they were able to reduce the costs of the three most common treatments by 24% to 49%. Evidence based care and eliminating unnecessary tests and care cut more than 10,000 hours from healthcare processes.
Goals: Same-day access to care and rapid return to work.
Continue Reading "Employer-Led Health Care Revolution"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Lean, Service, Six Sigma.
In this interesting video of How the Economic Machine Works Ray Dalio describes some key principles of economic growth. He has three rules for economic improvement. Rule Three is Do All That You Can To Raise Productivity.
Perhaps the most powerful tools for productivity improvement are Lean Value Stream Mapping and Spaghetti Diagramming. The 15-2-20 Rule says that for every 15 minutes of unnecessary delay removed from a process, a business can double productivity and increase profits by 20 percent.
All you need are sticky notes, a flip chart and an hour or two to identify and remove unnecessary delays and movement from any business process.
Continue Reading "Do All That You Can To Raise Productivity"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Lean, Manufacturing, Service.
Almost every time I purchase something online, I see a form that looks like this:
The Credit Card Type and Credit Card Number are redundant resulting in unnecessary duplication and processing
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- AMEX card numbers start with a “3”
- Visa card numbers start with a “4”
- Mastercard numbers start with a “5”
- etc.
There is no reason to ask for both. The number will tell you what kind of card you’re processing. Every day, across millions of transactions, customers are asked unnecessarily for a Credit Card Type. This is a type of waste. It irritates me.
Continue Reading "Lean – Unnecessary Processing of Online Credit Cards"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Lean, Service.
The April, 2014 Harvard Business Review has an article about creating a culture of quality. The authors found that a culture of quality will save $13,400 per employee per year. Surveyed participants also said it takes two hours to fix a mistake. Joseph Juran often said that companies lose a quarter (25%) of their revenue finding and fixing mistakes and errors, so this gives us a benchmark and a reason to embrace quality.
“Companies that take a grassroots, peer-driven approach develop a culture of quality. Traditional strategies have little effect.”
Four Factors that Drive Quality
- Leadership – As Deming said: “The aim of superision should be the help people and machines and gadgets do a better job.
Continue Reading "Creating a Culture of Quality"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Lean, Manufacturing, Service, Six Sigma.
