DailyKaizen

One of the first departments that our centralized Lean team worked with was Pharmacy and this was the first place that I participated in a Lean Workshop. Over the last year and a half we have conducted several RPIWs in this area, coordinated 5S events and have even trained two pharmacists to become Lean facilitators. Our Lean office’s involvement in this work has gradually been phased out as the managers and leaders have taken on a larger role in leading improvement work. Yesterday I ran into one of the leaders from this area that was ecstatic about the results. The leader told me they have greatly reduced cycle times, improved quality and achieved significant cost avoidance. She describe the new program they are about to implement a form of the” Daily Improvement” system where small teams will begin to conduct mini-Kaizen every day of the week.
This conversation really put me in a good mood. When we started with Pharmacy we were really green. Each of us had read Lean Thinking and participated in an abbreviated training program, but we jumped right in. We made a lot of mistakes with this group, but our successes far outweigh them. Most importantly, we have stayed the course and helped the Pharmacy leadership get to a level of maturity that they can now stand on their own. There has been a true culture change in Pharmacy. As Lean grows more popular in the organization it will be more and more tempting for leaders to spread our centralized Lean resources thin. I hope the organization takes the lesson from Pharmacy to heart and is willing to continue to support work long enough so that leaders can truly fish.

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