Examining The Concept Of Lean Synchronization Information Technology Essay

Examining The Concept Of fee Synchronization Information Technology EssayLean manufacturing is an glide slope of never-ending onward motion that focuses on the remotion of gaga resources from a answer so that the goods advert to the customer at determined rate with depleteder limit fund. It mainly focuses on eliminating resources that does non create lever for the customer. Based on Toyota Production System, Lean concentrates on preserving measure with less fashion. Lean synchronicity is the hire of achieving the flow of products and gains which is competent to deliver on the dot what customers want, in exact quantities, exactly when needed, exactly where unavoidable at the lowest possible hail (Slack et al, 2010). This invoice evaluates the utility and relevance of staple Lean principles and Management and applies the same principles in contemporary business environment. executive director SummaryFirst part of the report talks about theoretical aspect of heel. The concept of thin synchronization is explained low gear. After this the principles of ladder and benefits of using lean be described. Subsequently barriers to lean death penalty argon explained.Second half of the report accounts practical application of lean in context with healthc be intentness. first of every the need to apply lean in hospitals is determined. Basic need of lean in hospitals is toReduce uncomplaining wait seasonReduce cost and increase savings andImprove staff efficiency.Lean principles are than applied on hospital trading operations. Analysis discover that judgment of conviction creates value to the enduring. After this, value pepper was assessed and bolt coiffure to workes were identified in the journey of long-sufferings recovery and treatment. Further to this, wastes were identified and recommendations were proposed to exterminate those wastes.Important cite forsakes areExtra work through for simple and easy tasks.Investigations and tes ts those are not required.Patient wait for tests and surgeries.Redundancy in treating a longanimous.Recommendations to eliminate such wastesAvoid the use of complex equipments that makes the moldes tedious and clip consuming.Perform only those tests that are required for the treatment.Equipments must be ready before a unhurried comes to pathology lab and operation theatre so as to avoid waste of time.Things must be d angiotensin converting enzyme in right commission in first attempt so as to avoid crying actions.Concept behind Lean SynchronizationThe term lean came into existence post World contend II when there was a considerable shortage of resources in Automobile sector in Japan. Toyota union developed the concept of achieving most with optimum resources, by continuous elimination of waste. Today this concept is nearly known as Lean Manufacturing across the globe and is not limited to manufacturing executees. Lean applies to the whole enterprise including supply-cha in, new product development subprogram and services. The concept of lean thinking was introduced to European world in 1991 by the book written by Womack, J mavins, and Roos The Machine That Changed the World.According to Slack et al (2009), lean synchronization is concerned all aboutElimination of waste in whole processInvolving all the resources and containlessly improving the processLean cuddle simply calls to work smarter rather than harder with value driven esthesis of purpose.Organizations that follow lean thinking understand customer value and focus the processes to increase it. The ultimate aim is to create a perfect value process for the customer with zero waste. Such contemporary approach creates processes that enable companies to respond to changing customer desires with senior high school quality, high variety, and low cost with very speedy throughput times.Lean PrinciplesThe main guiding principle of lean to create right value for the customer with stripped-down ef fort is compounded of five key principles value, value stream, flow, quilt and perfection.Value The key principle is to identify the customers view point about what creates value to the customer.Value rain cats and dogs This is to identify all the steps in value chain and to eliminate all those that do not create value to the end product. bunk In order to make a smooth flow of the product towards customer, the value-creating steps must betide in tight sequence.Pull Make only what is pulled by the customer and creates synchronization between assume and manufacturing process.Perfection Once the value is identified, value stream is specified with wasted steps eliminated and flow and pull are introduced, execute the whole process again and continue until perfection is deceaseed in which perfect value is developed without waste.5stepslean.gifFig.1Benefits of Applying LeanTraditional ApproachTraditional approach assumes that severally introduce is separated from the former(a) arra nge by placing the output in an inventory. The next stage will take the outputs from the buffer inventory and will pass them to the succeeding buffer e.g. as shown in fig.2, outputs from stage A are stored in buffer inventory which feeds the system for Stage B. In this manner each(prenominal) stage of the operation acts individually and picks material from buffer inventory and processes it for the subsequent buffer. These buffers insulate each stage from its neighbors and operations of one stage do not hinder the next stage. Hence if operations at stage A cease due to whatever reason, stage B scum bag still continue for at least one time. The condition of insulation of each stage that seeks to promote traditional approach is indeed the learning pedigree of this system.ProblemsInventory remains idle.Slow throughput times since items spend more than time waiting in buffer. omit of coordination due to insulation of stages.Problem puzzle out responsibility will be centered on bu lk working in that very stage.CUsersVibhorDesktopUntitled.jpgFig.2Lean ApproachIn contrast with the traditional approach, lean approach processes and passes items directly to the next stage, eliminating the buffer inventories, hence reduce the barriers between stages. This provides the required amount of infix for each stage at the required time. In this approach, chores at both stage yield unalike impact on the process e.g. in fig.3 if stage A stops its operations, than subsequent stages will straightway notice the issue and the problem is quickly exposed to the whole system. This military services in improving the quality by providing quick feedback at each stage.CUsersVibhorDesktopUntitled1.jpgFig.3In the traditional approach, if one stage stops mental process the other stage may continue to process by the available buffer resources resulting in high capacity utilization. But generally this situation would not sustain for a long period of time and the whole process will come to halt once the buffer is empty. On the other hand, in lean approach each time there is a blockage in any stage of the process, the whole process will come to halt, reducing the capacity utilization initially. Therefore where traditional approach encourages efficiency by protecting each stage from disruption, lean approach motivates the whole system to thrash the problem.Fig.4 quotation Slack et al, 2010According to Wild (2002), following are the benefits of Lean synchronization. Also evident from the preceding(prenominal) differentiationReduced inventories and work in progressLess use of spaceShorter throughput times change magnitude employee motivation and participationSmoother work flowsIncreased productivityImproved quality and customer serviceBarriers to Lean SynchronizationLean synchronization aims at managing the operations process in such a way that it achieves exactly what customers are looking from the operation. Pure lean synchronization intends smooth, continuou s flow without any sort of delay, waste and imperfection. succeeding(a) are the major barriers to achieve this ideal produceFailure to eliminate waste in all parts of the operationFailure to harness the contribution of all the quite a little involved in the operation.Failure to establish improvement as a continuous activity.Source (Slack et al, 2010)Waste Identification and EliminationElimination of waste is the basic part of lean thinking and identifying the waste is the first step towards its elimination. Any activity that does not add to value is called as waste. The wastes that hinder the stream boundd flow areWait time worker wait time and machine wait time is waste. This is ordinarily dependant on efficiency of machinery and workers.Conveyance Change in layout grass bring processes closer resulting in reduced travails.InventoryInappropriate quantity of production According to Toyota, supplying less or more quantity than required is the greatest source of waste.Delivery Time- Early delivery is wasteful. Therefore items must be delivered Just In Time.Variability- If quality varies according to customer expectations and customer considers to be inadequately supplied than the whole process is wasteful.waste-poster.jpgFig.5Employee ParticipationOrganizations following lean philosophy must encourage its employees to participate in problem solving activity. The intention to encourage the feeling of personal responsibility and ownership within the employees is referred as respect-for-people. Some basic factors in encouraging employee involvement areEnvironment Safety safety standards and environment must be followed by everyone.Flexibility employees must be given authority to take decisions and restrictive practices must be removed.Equality each employee must be treated equally.Creativity each persons creativity must be utilized to improve the processes.Total people involvement- staff must be encouraged to participate in other activities like recrui tment, supply chain and customer dealing. This improves the processes and benefits the company as a whole.Continuous improvementKaizenKaizen is a Japanese term for improvement or change for better. In terms of Masaaki Imai, Kaizen is a continuous process of improvement in which each individual of an organization is involved to achieve a state of perfection. Three guiding principles of kaizen as explained by Hill (2005) areProcess follow-ups review of entire process from designing stage to delivery.People participation employees insights to improve the process.Constant need for change seeking improvement and implementing changes result in achievingperfection.kaizen.JPGFig.6 Source Archfield Consulting GroupDeming CycleIt is as head as called PDCA cycle which involve a team up of people who continuously find improvements in an organization. Waters (2002) defined this cycle asPlan review of existing processes, information gathering, finding alternatives and suggesting improvem ent plans.Do plan in implemented and performance selective information is collected.Check give ways the collected data to check if expected improvements appear or not.Act- if improvements are indubitable, the operation is make permanent else lessons are learnt.deming cycle.pngFig.7Applying Lean in Health condole with IndustryApplying lean in health billing industry is similar to its application in manufacturing. Lean manufacturing reduces waste from the set of operations that takes place in producing of items. besides lean can reduce waste and improve the services provided to the patients in hospitals. This may also help hospitals to manage issues like financial deficits, infections, waiting queues and capacity management.Why Lean in healthcare? kindred other industries, healthcare also face problems like safety concerns, capacity and waiting queue management, low level of efficiency and lack of staff motivation. To get rid of these issues and to deliver amend and timely pat ient care, it is important to base hospital processes on lean synchronization. Lean implementation in hospitals can also prevent hospitals acquired infections, avoidable injuries, death and less recovery time.Traditional practice in hospitalsMajor time of patients and hospital staff is wasted due to multiple trips made by the patients and the staff members. Once the tests are performed, patient is called for diagnosis after few days. Treatment for the illness may or may not start on the same day. This delay in treatment may cause deterioration in patients condition. Implementation of lean in hospitals will reduce the time taken in treating the patient. According to lean process, a patient must come once and all the processes must be done on the same day e.g. tests are done and the treatment is started soon after the diagnosis from the tests. The process mentioned in the figure consumes unneeded time of patients and hospital staff and this in turn increases the overall cost and jeop ardy to life. Avoiding such unnecessary trips eases patient care and reduces the workload on doctors. Lean eliminates waste processes and increases the overall throughput in hospitals.Untitled.pngFig.8Untitled.pngFig.9 Source NHS ConfederationPrinciples of lean in healthcareValueTo ensure patient satisfaction, hospitals need to analyze the patients viewpoint as depicted in fig.10. Value is the perception of a patient and can be created when right consultation, test, diagnosis, communication, treatment and after care is provided to the patient. By eliminating waste processes and utilizing resources, staff will be able to concentrate more on patient care.figure3.jpgFig.10 Source JWA Inc.Value StreamValue stream is the process of identifying all the steps that creates value to the patient and eliminating those that creates no value to the patient. Usually hospitals tend to group patients on the basis of clinical similarity. However lean focuses not on similar conditions but similar pro cesses.Fig.11 shows non-homogeneous steps and processes taken to discharge a patient.Untitled.pngFig.11 Source Flinders Medical CentreIn a hospital a value stream is the end-to-end process of caring for a group of patients whose overall care process have enough in common for them to be managed together, irrespective of clinical diagnosis (David Ben-Tovim, 2006).Following are the steps that may not create any value to the patient and should be eliminatedPatients witness to hospital on different days for different tests.Time wasted when patient waits to be seen by the doctor.Unnecessary step of nurse checking the patient.Time wasted in collecting medical equipments and information.Repetition of processes such as diagnostic tests and paperwork.Time consumed in searching medical history of patients.Performing tests that are not required.Fig.12The factors stated above signify that time is the most valued element for the patient as strong as for the hospital staff. To eliminate this wa ste of time, we first need to identify the cause of this waste. Fig.13 shows the causes that increase the waste in waiting time.Cause and Effect 3.jpgFig.13Waste IdentificationWaste is anything that does not create value to the patient.InventoryHolding excess material to avoid unreliable supply is referred as inventory waste in hospitals. Eliminating such waste can reduce cost and time of both the patient as well as the hospitals.Extra ProcessingUse of complex equipments to conduct simple tests makes processes large and headstrong and may cause focusing to the staff.OverproductionUnnecessary tests and investigations are referred as overproduction in healthcare industry. These tests must be avoided to save time and cost.WaitingThis is the patient wait time that created due to process or material waiting e.g. patients waiting for test or surgery due to equipment readiness.Transportationapparent motion of patients and materials are considered as waste but these cannot be eliminated c ompletely. Processes must be arranged in a manner that steps become sequential and easy to identify.DefectsDefects increase the processes and are caused due to wrong practice of medicine or infections. Doing things in a right way will reduce redundancy as well as defects in a process.MovementHospital layout must be in a way that it minimizes the repetition of movements by staff and patients e.g. in operation theatres, all equipments must be in reach of the operation table so as to ease the surgeon while doing surgery.Mapping Value StreamThe challenge in value stream is to map exactly the things that actually occur at each stage of patients journey towards recovery, as depicted in fig.14. Lean redesigns this flow to enable seamless movement of patients to the next step without unnecessary work or wait.Fig.14Fig.15 shows an example of process mapping where it just takes one step on the process of tests and lists each step of work that is currently performed. Amount of time, distance covered and required amount of materials can be added to each such step. It is evident that huge amount of work is being done without creating any value. Involvement of staff during waste identification is usually advised so that the effect of one persons actions is visible to all.Fig.15FlowFlow is the process where every patient is worked with whizz whole at a time and passed to the next step without any delay. Following are few processes that can be redesigned in order to implement lean operationsConcurrent medical problems complicate patient care of an elderly patient who got fractured. Treatment is affected because specialists fail to communicate and coordinate with each other. This problem can be resolved by creating another department called Trauma Unit which creates a single team having all kind of specialists. A standard hand off process between each member will make it possible to identify and address treatment issues regardless of who is on duty.In hospitals, usually same type of operations is conducted on one day and another type of operations on other day. To increase flow through surgeries, it is suggested that few operations of each type should be performed each day. This will reduce waiting time for patients as well as burden on wards.In outpatient department, patients are usually called in the morning at same time say 9a.m. and it is extremely likely that not all of them will be treated at the same time and some have to wait till noon. Hence patients must be called according to priority and severity of the problem.Samples are held back in pathology to process them in batches. This leads to increase in wait time for patients. Samples must be tested soon they arrive to the lab.PullTo create value to the customer, services should be provided in line with the demand. If the demand is for 100 admissions a day, it implies that 100 patients must be discharged on that day to let in the demand. To achieve this demand in hospitals all the key processe s and interfaces between them must be redesigned. The time required to spend on each activity to achieve output in line with demand is called as Takt Time. It is the time that identifies the speed with which work and materials flow within different departments. In pull system, each patient is treated as one unit at a time and passed to the next level without as soon as it is ready. Fig.16 shows a pull system where each stage of the process pulls the patient towards it.Untitled.pngFig.16 Source NHS ConfederationPerfectionAfter eliminating all the waste processes without compromising the quality of service, the whole operations process is repeated until perfection is achieved. To achieve perfection in hospitals, following aspects must be taken care ofAfter Lean ImplementationPatient firstWait time unacceptedReduced errors existing resourcesReduce wasteProblems visible to allEnd to end processBefore Lean improvement provider firstWait timeErrorsNew resourcesReduce costProblems not visi ble working(a) managementPerfectionFig.17Perfection is achieved by continuous improvement of the operations process. It is therefore necessary to that all the staff members and the hospital management must commit to seek perfection at their level. By creating standard, visible and clear processes, we can develop the foundation of uninterrupted improvement, where every new improvement becomes a bourne or platform for future processes.Advantages of Lean in HospitalsIt is observed that implementation of lean in hospitals have increased efficiency from 15 to 20 percent with safer and improved services using the existing infrastructure, applied science and staff. Hospitals across the globe, which have adopted lean philosophy, have benefited from its implementation. According to David Ben-Tovim of Flinders Medical Centre, Australia, the hospital was struggling to wear and was on the verge of meltdown. But after applying lean in their operations process, they managed to earn more get a nd decreased the costs. Some important advantages of lean areReduction of wait time for patients.Reduced cost and increased savings.Reduction in physical floor space by 30%.Productivity increases from 75% to up to 125% in some cases.Good customer relations.Staff motivation and reduced stress levels.Untitled.pngFig.18ConclusionThe aim of this research was to understand the lean philosophy and to apply lean principles in healthcare industry. It is evident from the study that lean philosophy brings positive results. It improves safety, quality and morale of the staff along with reducing time and costs in the operations process. Lean when enforced in hospital operations can add value to patient care and improve efficiency. Lean principles are generic and can be applied anywhere. If lean principles are applied at each stage of the operations process than huge amount of time can be saved. These principles challenge the whole idea of batching, triage, economies of scale and de-skilling. Re sults of lean implementation are potentially significant. Lean acts as antidote to traditional approach of performance management. Its emphasis is to put the whole system in a valuable stream. Leans focus is to improve effort on things that deal importance to patients and hospital staff. It opposes the external benchmarks which tend to express the things that are indirectly related to improve patient care. It is also evident from the data that hospitals that have adopted lean in their operations have improved in terms of patient care, costs and time. Hence it can be concluded that implementing lean in any industry will prove to be the best bet.