by Lee Fried, on 25 Jul 2006 01:11 pm
The Journey
Similar Opportunities
Popularity: 15%
Over the last year I have had the opportunity to work on many different LEAN projects in a wide range of areas. I have worked in transactional environments, with administrative teams, ancillary departments, and clinical departments and recently with our IT/informatics groups. What is most interesting to me is the fact that every project is very similar in terms of opportunities and challenges. For example:
- All of the teams I have worked with started out with the notion that LEAN was not applicable to their work and “was for cars.”
- All of the teams worked in batch and queue systems.
- None of the teams had process measures for their work.
- Most teams did not follow standard work.
- All the teams have surpassed my expectations.
What I have come to realize as a consultant is that it maters very little where I end up working in terms of the function as long as I get to work with engaged and committed teams and strong leadership. I wonder if others have found similar conclusions?
One Response to “Similar Opportunities”
on 26 Jul 2006 at 4:17 pm 1.Mark Graban said …
I’ll second your observations Lee, particularly from what I’ve seen in various hospitals. If there ARE metrics, they are usually limited to 1) cost and 2) output quantity. Safety and Quality metrics are harder to find. I always encourage people to follow the TPS metrics mantra of “SQDC” — Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost.