Lean Six Sigma Seeks to improve the quality of manufacturing and business process by:
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identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and variation.
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Identifying and removing sources of waste within the process
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Focusing on outputs that are critical to customers
Waste Defined:
| Wastes |
Healthcare Examples |
| Transport |
1.Moving patients from room to room
2.Poor workplace layouts, for patient services
3.Moving equipment in and out of procedure room or operating room |
| Inventory |
1.Overstocked medications on units/floors or in pharmacy
2.Physician orders building up to be entered
3.Unnecessary instruments contained in operating kits |
| Motion |
1.Leaving patient rooms to:
•Get supplies or record
•Documents care provided
2.Large reach/walk distance to complete a process step |
| Waiting |
1.Idle equipment/people
2.Early admissions for procedures later in the day
3.Waiting for internal transport between departments |
| Over-Production |
1.Multiple signature requirements
2.Extra copies of forms
3.Multiple information systems entries
4.Printing hard copy of report when digital is sufficient |
| Over-Processing |
1.Asking the patient the same questions multiple times
2.Unnecessary carbon copying
3.Batch printing patient labels |
| Defects |
1.Hospital-acquired illness
2.Wrong-site surgeries
3.Medication errors
4.Dealing with service complaints
5.Illegible, handwritten information
6.Collection of incorrect patient information |
| Skills |
1.Not using people’s mental, creative, and physical abilities
2.Staff not involved in redesigning processes in their workplace
3.Nurses and Doctors spending time locating equipment and supplies
4.Staff rework due to system failures |
- Lean tends to be used for shorter, less complex problems. Often time driven. Focus is on eliminating wasteful steps and practices.
- Six Sigma is a bigger more analytical approach – often quality driven – it tends to have a statistical approach. Focus on optimizing the important steps – reducing defects.
- Some argue Lean moves the mean, SixSigma moves the variance. But they are often used together and should not be viewed as having different objectives.
–Waste elimination eliminates an opportunity to make a defect
–Less rework means faster cycle times
- Six Sigma training might be specialized to the “quality” department, but everyone in the organization should be trained in Lean
