Saving Money While Making Money
Not long ago I accompanied my wife on a business trip to Washington, D.C. While she was attending her conference, I took in some of the sites in our nation’s capital. One tour I’ve always wanted to take was through the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP). As I visited the bureau, the guide mentioned that the BEP was utilizing Lean Six Sigma (LSS) techniques in a variety of ways. It was interesting to hear how they are saving while making (i.e., printing) money. In fact, their LSS project portfolio is growing by leaps and bounds. BEP has more than 20 active LSS and 5S projects in progress, the most BEP has ever had at one time; and more than 100 are planned for future completion. BEP continues to aggressively implement 5S methodology as part of the overall LSS program initiatives deployment. 5S is a LSS tool that stands for Sort, Straighten, Shine, Standardize and Sustain. 5S efforts improve workplace efficiency and throughput by standardizing working practices and by removing variability from operational processes to provide improved product quality and customer service. One of the most fascinating uses of LSS, though, was in BEP’s Mutilated Currency Division (MCD). From burned bills torched in a devastating wildfire to soggy savings water damaged after being found in a box in the backyard, a team of trained professionals is dedicated to helping people redeem their mangled money. They process more than 20,000 claims each year totaling more than 40 million worth of damaged U.S. currency as a free public service. How is it possible? All the examiners have to do is verify that the scraps really were cold hard cash at one time. If they identify at least 51 percent of a bill, the Treasury will replace it. The examination process is rigorous and time consuming, and although the MCD works very hard to complete claims as quickly as possible, the processing times can vary from six months to more than two years. In order to address this, the MCD applied LSS methodologies to remove waste, redundant process steps, and systemic variation. The MCD completed a renovation of the examiner rooms, lab room, hallways, new examiner tables complete with air extraction units and new lighting, increased camera coverage, and refurbished two vaults. In addition, process mapping was used to document and display the entire process to identify and eliminate non-value added process steps. The project resulted in process times improving up to 75% faster for completion. The Bureau has figured out how to save money while saving money – literally! So when your life savings gets torched in a house fire or your dog eats your wallet, there’s a roomful of really smart, efficient people in Washington, D.C. who may be able to help you. Check out these tips on how to reclaim your cold, hard cash! How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting errors? If your business processes need a “check-up,” please email me at michael@leadingchangeforgood.com! I’d love to help you get back to a healthy, productive...
Read MoreForensic Labs Use Lean Six Sigma to Reduce Backlogs, Bring Justice
Across the U.S., police department forensic lab teams painstakingly perform tests in hundreds of thousands of cases each year in an effort to bring about justice. When evidence is brought into the lab, it must be screened, sampled, extracted, measured and quantified to create a profile. Unlike the TV crime shows (where everything is solved in 20 minutes plus commercials), the time from collecting evidence to having a completed scientific report to continue the legal process can takes weeks and sometimes months or even years. As a result, it’s really easy for the process to get backed up. Particularly with city budgets and staffing getting tighter and tighter, forensic lab leaders can be at a loss for how to make a dent in the backlog of cases. But the Tulsa Police Department’s Forensic Lab in Tulsa, OK has done just that. In two years, they successfully whittled down the number of backlogged cases (cases more than 30 days old) by over 60%, from 800 to less than 500! It’s all a matter of learning to do more with less, noted Operations Manager Jon Wilson. They did it by implementing Lean Six Sigma training (LSS) and techniques. The team improved performance by removing extra steps from the process while still maintaining accuracy. The Louisiana State Police Crime Lab implemented a similar LSS initiative a few years ago. The team successfully shrunk the lab’s backlog from nearly 2,000 cases to less than 340. But the departments weren’t satisfied. Both teams set the lofty goal of eventually eliminating their backlogs entirely. Why? Because of the impact it can have on victims and their families. “A rape kit sitting on a shelf for more than a day, one day is too many,” shared Louisiana State Police Colonel Mike Edmondson. Although numerous police departments have made headway in reducing backlogs with Lean Six Sigma, others are challenged to find funding for the initial staff training in LSS techniques. That’s why it’s encouraging that last month Congress introduced legislation to continue the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program, which provides funding to support public crime laboratories’ work to build capacity and process DNA evidence, including evidence collected in rape kits. Since its enactment in 2004, the Debbie Smith Act has been renewed twice with overwhelming bipartisan support. The Act’s namesake, Debbie Smith, has a courageous story to share that should keep us all working toward helping crime labs have the tools they need to do their jobs more efficiently. If you’d like to follow the bill’s progress, check out this bill tracker. How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting errors? If your business processes need a “check-up,” please email me at michael@leadingchangeforgood.com! I’d love to help you get back to a healthy, productive...
Read MoreCancer Center Saves Lives With Six Sigma
Many health care leaders are beginning to see the benefits that Six Sigma tools can bring to not only solving current operational problems, but also creating long-term solutions. One example comes from the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. The cancer center’s Director of Clinical Operations Lauren Giolai, MBA, BSN, RN shared with Oncology Nursing News that “if you don’t set up the process so that it’s a sustainable win, people get tired and suffer from change fatigue. Creating collaborative solutions that make it better for everyone are the keys to success.” Giolai is an oncology nurse, a job that can be incredibly rewarding as well as challenging. Cancer care nurses develop close relationships with patients, as well as their families and caregivers, over months and years of treatment. In addition to providing treatment, they also teach them how to manage their symptoms and conditions. They get to be an advocate, cheerleader, supporter and encourager for patients facing one of the toughest times in their lives. They also keep tabs on a patient’s changing condition and coordinate needed therapies. They frequently are the liaison between patients and doctors, conveying important updates. Because of their compromised immune systems, cancer patients often encounter sudden, potentially life-threatening changes in their condition. Getting them to prompt medical care often can mean the difference between life and death. One area Giolai and her team found opportunities for improvement was in reducing wait times for cancer patients who come to the hospital’s emergency department with neutropenic fever, caused by low levels of infection-fighting white blood cells. Using Six Sigma tools, a multi-disciplinary team focused on cutting down the time it took from the time patients with neutropenic fever entered the emergency department to when they received intravenous antibiotics. It took input from many departments within the hospital, but eventually a systematic, data-driven approach paid off. The cancer center started giving patients a neutropenic fever alert card that they could share with ambulance personnel and emergency department staff when they entered the hospital. They also added a field on the emergency department’s sign-in form to allow patients an opportunity to indicate neutropenic fever. They then developed a neutropenic fever alert system that emergency department staff could use to trigger a team that would quickly respond to the bedside when such a patient was identified. Giolai credits these simple improvements with saving hundreds of lives. The task force won 2 awards, Overall Showcase and Greatest Customer Impact, at the 2017 Florida Sterling Conference Team Showcase competition. They then used a similar approach to reduce the wait time for lab results by 53% and overall wait time by 26% The results? Patient satisfaction scores went through the roof. Giolai said that breaking down silos and bringing together different departments that don’t normally interact to solve a problem is one of the key benefits of Six Sigma. She offered tips on how to go about lasting process improvement in health care, including: Picking a change that will impact patients Mapping out the process Getting input from the customers and stakeholders Forming teams with a variety of backgrounds and perspectives Defining clearly what you want to improve Defining clearly the steps you need to take Completing the steps and track the results, making changes as needed Kudos to the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center team on a job well done. What tools have been helpful to create sustainable improvement at your workplace? How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting...
Read MoreUsing DMAIC to Spruce Up Your Resume
Not too long ago I went through a refresher course on how to put together a stellar resume. As it had been several years, the old resume styles were clearly outdated. Several newer requirements, such as formatting your resume toward applicant tracking systems, were now in vogue. As we went through the class, it struck me how the process of putting together a resume was very similar to the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) process used in Process Improvement. To put together a good resume, one can use multiple tools from the DMAIC process: Define: First, it is imperative to understand who the target audience is for your resume and define what criteria they are looking for . This can be done in a lot of ways, including talking to experts in the field, looking at the job description and obtaining examples from the internet. If you’re exploring two or three different types of positions, then the target audience may be very different for each. Measure: Once you have defined the target audience for your resume, you’ll need to customize your approach for each audience. Begin measuring your accomplishments over the years. Gather appropriate details on your educational background, work successes and awards you’ve received throughout your career. Analyze: Once you have all this information together, you then can begin to analyze the data you’ve collected and determine which best the fit the criteria for your target audience and job requirements. While most people will develop multiple pages of information about their career, it is important to hone in on the most pertinent examples that illustrate your ability to meet the requirements of a job description. Improve: Once you’ve decided what information needs to go into the resume, then you can start to build it. From the rough draft, you can continue to improve the layout and content to form the finished product. You can test the resume out by having a few people in the field that you are planning to go into review it for you. Control: The ultimate goal of any resume is to obtain interviews. One can look at the number of interviews or contacts one receives as a way to monitor the successful implementation of the resume. Just as a resume needs to be tailored for individual positions, it’s important that a Process Improvement team also focuses on the requirements set by its customers. For a resume, the customer may be a hiring manager or an applicant tracking system, whereas in a Process Improvement program it could be upper management or a collaborating department or external vendor. You’ve probably heard the saying that no job is permanent, especially these days. What techniques do you use to keep your resume current — whether you’re in the job market or not? How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting errors? If your business processes need a “check-up,” please email me at michael@leadingchangeforgood.com! I’d love to help you get back to a healthy, productive...
Read MoreThere’s Always Room for Improvement
A few months ago I met with a group that wanted to learn about Lean Six Sigma. As we began our discussion, they assured me everything was going well. They just wanted to get more information on how we might consider a continuous improvement process. As we talked, it became apparent that there were several potential areas that could be evaluated. These included a very complicated production process, a multi-stage transportation process from factory to warehouse, and a lot of variation in the intermediate and final products that they were producing. I asked them about bottlenecks -areas where things are not going as smoothly as one would hope or expect. As we delved into the processes that they were using, they began to realize that there were multiple areas that, while not broken, could certainly use a tweak here or there to help improve productivity. Our discussion led into several areas of Lean, talking about transportation, over-engineering, and loss of time. We decided however to focus on a bigger issue dealing with defects, and that a Six Sigma project would be very appropriate for what they needed to evaluate. It’s often interesting to talk to individuals or groups to understand how things are done at their company. At first, everything is fine. But the more you talk, the more anecdotal information you get about what is really happening — problems that have bubbled up or excess resources devoted to working around issues. One of the first steps in any continuous improvement program is admitting that there is room for improvement. A “perfect” system doesn’t need any help, because the people using it won’t admit they need help. It’s important as one considers either a new cip or one that’s been well established for some time to keep an open mind about what could be changed and what could be gained by those changes. How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting errors? If your business processes need a “check-up,” please email me at michael@leadingchangeforgood.com! I’d love to help you get back to a healthy, productive...
Read MoreThe Power of Checklists
My wife and I recently went on a trip for business and pleasure. As we were preparing to go, she put together a packing list. I, being a non-list person, began filling up my suitcase and finished much sooner than she did. Needless to say, I discovered a few key items that I had forgotten to pack once we reached our destination, necessitating a stop at the local drug store. In looking back on this incident, I can see the advantage that my wife had in creating a checklist of items she wanted to take with her. We’ve traveled enough that she has a standard list that she works from each time. Although she may add or subtract a few items based on our destination or time of year that we’re traveling, it seems that she never forgets any of the items that she wants to bring for the trip. Lists such as this are very useful in a variety of settings. While discussing airplanes with a pilot friend, he told me that he uses a checklist each time he goes flying. And while he’s been flying more than 30 years (currently in a two-seater instead of a 747), he still uses a checklist for each flight. Checklists have also been utilized in medicine, particularly in hospital settings. In his book The Checklist Manifesto, surgeon and researcher Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, argues that today’s workplaces have become so incredibly complicated that mistakes of one kind or another are virtually inevitable. He illustrates how a simple, low-tech checklist can make all the difference in reducing errors and ensuring patient safety. When designing a new continuous improvement process, checklists can be extremely handy in ensuring that everyone knows what the process is, and follows the process the same way. This helps to ensure uniformity and completeness of the new process. It also prevents the tendency to relapse into old methodologies, thus negating the gains from the new process. Most organizations have standard operating procedures of some nature. Within those, how many actually have a checklist of the steps involved within that process? Does your organization use checklists, and, are there ways to incorporate checklists in the work that you are doing? I look forward to hearing your thoughts! How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting errors? If your business processes need a “check-up,” please email me at michael@leadingchangeforgood.com! I’d love to help you get back to a healthy, productive...
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