DailyKaizen

Today was the big day - my first tour of the Model Line. Lee met me at the entrance of one of our administrative centers, and I requested a trip to the espresso bar to recaffeinate. The espresso machine wasn’t operational today, but Lee told me there would be better coffee to be had in the model line area. Sure enough, they had the same fancy new automated machine that we had in our building, which produced reasonably good coffee and only cost $0.50. This machine had been set to dispense coffee for free, though. Lee said that this was on the VP for the team. It was in this spirit that the day started.

Lee led me past the dashboard visible on the wall, demonstrating cost savings and productivity, to “Klub Kaizen,” which is the VP’s former office. His present office is a cubicle outside. Lee tells me that he knows almost all off the 700 employees here by name, and has established a standard work schedule for himself that involves presence where the work is happening.

The workplan is visible on the wall as a series of post-its, which describe agreed upon activities to be executed throughout the year. Since much of this area’s work revolves around information technology, there is integration of IT work into the plan - no surprises when work is requested; IT is not set up to be seen as unresponsive.

There are mother A3’s and baby A3’s on one wall. Lee shows me the current state and the future state. One wall is about successes. Another is about the competition, the voice of the customer, and “on the horizon.”

I am then walked over to claims processing, where there is a heijunka box on display. Lee asks me, “Ted, can you tell me if anyone is behind.” I can. I can tell that most of the team is not behind, and that some are at lunch, at a glance.

The unit’s manager comes to speak with us. The backlog is now decreased and the flow of work is visible. “We can be faster, and more accurate.” The two seemed to be at odds before.

There are facilities professionals moving furniture around - Lee shows me the old office set up and the new work-cell office set up. The team is doing a slow conversion to this new setup.

I see a wall that describes “Customer Focused Management Training,” which describes the rework of specific processes through 10 modules of activity.

So, that’s what I saw. How did it make me feel?

Initially, overwhelmed. For as much as I’ve done in LEAN, I was asking myself if I could be competent to put a system like together if I were in Lee’s shoes (I’m really still not sure - but I would hope to do something as impressive as what I see). They are working on strategy deployment, cross-functional management, and daily management. After the overwhelm, I see all of the parallels to clinical medicine - “faster and more accurate.” The claims being processed are coming from my medical colleagues all over the State, after all. Lee has visible pride in all of the accomplishments of the teams here. The overwhelm is replaced with the realization that this work is going to continue. I can always come here to learn about LEAN, right within our own organization. I have time.

This is a pretty remarkable achievement. I hope that this work will be swarmed by physicians in the next few weeks-months-years, looking to apply the principles in all of the things we do for our members.

I’ve already recommended a visit to several of our executives, many who have already been here. I love the idea that one of the biggest innovations in health care here is not a new MRI scanner, but a better way of doing our members’ business so that we can care for them whenever and wherever they need us.

Model line images: Click on any image to see it in a gallery

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