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The July-August 2015 Harvard Business Review has an article by Particia McDonald, Robert Mecklenburg, MD. and Lindsay Martin on how Intel is driving reduction in health care costs. Intel was projecting that healthcare costs would hit $1 Billion a year in 2012.
Using Virginia Mason’s approach to Lean Healthcare, Intel worked with Cigna and a newly formed Healthcare Marketplace Collaborative (HMC), they were able to reduce the costs of the three most common treatments by 24% to 49%. Evidence based care and eliminating unnecessary tests and care cut more than 10,000 hours from healthcare processes.
Goals: Same-day access to care and rapid return to work.
Continue Reading "Employer-Led Health Care Revolution"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Lean, Service, Six Sigma.
In this interesting video of How the Economic Machine Works Ray Dalio describes some key principles of economic growth. He has three rules for economic improvement. Rule Three is Do All That You Can To Raise Productivity.
Perhaps the most powerful tools for productivity improvement are Lean Value Stream Mapping and Spaghetti Diagramming. The 15-2-20 Rule says that for every 15 minutes of unnecessary delay removed from a process, a business can double productivity and increase profits by 20 percent.
All you need are sticky notes, a flip chart and an hour or two to identify and remove unnecessary delays and movement from any business process.
Continue Reading "Do All That You Can To Raise Productivity"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Lean, Manufacturing, Service.
At the ASQ Lean Six Sigma Conference, the QI Macros booth was right next to my biggest competitor–the big dog in the market (you know who they are). A guy comes up to me and says: “We bought 150 copies of their product (pointing to the booth next to me) and it was really expensive. I asked our Green Belts if they were using it and they said No, it’s too hard to use. What are they using; they said Excel.” He went on to say: “I’m thinking about getting the QI Macros because everyone is comfortable with Excel.”
And he wasn’t the only attendee who complained about the same issues: costs too much and too hard to use.
Continue Reading "Complex Statistical Software–a Barrier to Six Sigma"
Posted by Jay Arthur in QI Macros, Six Sigma.
Almost every time I purchase something online, I see a form that looks like this:
The Credit Card Type and Credit Card Number are redundant resulting in unnecessary duplication and processing
-
- AMEX card numbers start with a “3”
- Visa card numbers start with a “4”
- Mastercard numbers start with a “5”
- etc.
There is no reason to ask for both. The number will tell you what kind of card you’re processing. Every day, across millions of transactions, customers are asked unnecessarily for a Credit Card Type. This is a type of waste. It irritates me.
Continue Reading "Lean – Unnecessary Processing of Online Credit Cards"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Lean, Service.
I had a breakfast burrito at the Marriott in San Diego last week. I cut it in half and took a bite. I realized there was somthing amiss when I pulled out a strip of plastic. I tried to pull it apart, but it wouldn’t break.
I showed it to the cafe staff and she said: “It looks like an onion.” But a cooked onion would pull apart; the plastic didn’t. I got my money back.
I can imagine that if a machine is cutting onions into strips that it would cut plastic as well. Then the plastic just looks like an onion strip in the egg.
Continue Reading "The Plastic Breakfast Burrito"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Manufacturing, Service, Six Sigma.
The April, 2014 Harvard Business Review has an article about creating a culture of quality. The authors found that a culture of quality will save $13,400 per employee per year. Surveyed participants also said it takes two hours to fix a mistake. Joseph Juran often said that companies lose a quarter (25%) of their revenue finding and fixing mistakes and errors, so this gives us a benchmark and a reason to embrace quality.
“Companies that take a grassroots, peer-driven approach develop a culture of quality. Traditional strategies have little effect.”
Four Factors that Drive Quality
- Leadership – As Deming said: “The aim of superision should be the help people and machines and gadgets do a better job.
Continue Reading "Creating a Culture of Quality"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Lean, Manufacturing, Service, Six Sigma.
Downloaded and installed Excel for the iPad. It’s provides basic Excel functionality. As expected, it will handle QI Macros charting templates, but won’t run macros. https://www.qimacros.com/store/?cat=14
To get the full functionality of the QI Macros or to run any Visual Basic addins, you’ll need a Windows 8 tablet running Excel 2010 or Excel 2013.
I tried several Win 8 tablets.
The Surface Pro is fast, but heavy and runs warm because of the I5 processor. I didn’t love the keyboard.
I tried the Samsung, but it had an idiot light that blinked when closed that ate 5% of the battery every day.
Continue Reading "Excel App for the iPad and QI Macros"
Posted by Jay Arthur in QI Macros.
A QI Macros customer recently asked: ” What is a reasonable and productive ratio of Lean or Six Sigma expert (LSSBB, for example) to staff for a healthcare organization that is starting the journey?”
The general consensus I can find online about Six Sigma belts/employees is:
1 BB/100 employees
3 GB/100 employees
I think these numbers are designed to keep Six Sigma training companies in business.
Depending on the size of a Medical center, you could use one BB and some GBs to get started. You can’t fix everything all at once, so one BB ramrodding a handful of GBs to solve key problems would be a good start.
Continue Reading "How Many Green and Black Belts Do You Need?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Lean, Service, Six Sigma.
This video suggests that 9 out of 10 Americans think that income should be more evenly distributed.
Unfortunately, Vilfredo Pareto found over a century ago that 20% of the people have 80% of the wealth. He felt that even if it was redistributed it would soon fall back to the 80/20 distribution.
Pareto’s Rule is a power law which means that 4% of Americans should hold 64% of the wealth and 1% of Americans should hold 50% of the wealth. According to this video, the top 1% only has 40%. They also pay 40% of the taxes. The bottom 40% of Americans pay no taxes.
Continue Reading "Pareto’s Rule in Wealth Distribution"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Six Sigma.
In this video, Malcomb Gladwell describes the quest for the perfect spaghetti sauce. While one company tried to optimize smooth Italian-style spaghetti sauce, another company discovered that customers wanted chunky sauce and stole the show.
http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html
DOE can optimize a product, but may not satisfy your customer’s needs.
In this case, if you asked a customer what they wanted in a spaghetti sauce, they couldn’t tell you (Voice of the Customer). The company tried all kinds of variations in their sauce (spicy, thick, thin, chunky, smooth) and tested them with customers. Spicy and chunky had significant showings. Sometimes you have to listen to the “Stomach of the Customer” (SOC).
Continue Reading "Design of Experiments May Not Satisfy Customers"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Six Sigma.
