Lean Six Sigma Analysis

The driving factors for a success or failure of implementing Six Sigma is largely dependent on the inputs set forth at the conception and duration of the integration. This whitepaper will compare and contrast these critical inputs for a successful deployment. In order to accomplish this five various companies: GE Electric, W.R. Grace, Royal Chemicals, Diversified Paper and Lemforder. Some of these organizations had very successful results while others failed to reach their full potential. What is clear is the similarities of those that succeed and those that failed.

Health care managers need to improve quality services in health organizations. To improve these quality services they have to use methods that are proven helpful in the QI process. For example, Six Sigma is used to display and measure quality improvement data. It is also used to measure

Lean Six Sigma combines Lean’s time-focused waste-elimination philosophy to dynamic analytical problem solving toolkit of Six Sigma.

Due to ineffective management systems, inefficiency is increasing, which often leads to congested emergency rooms, customer complaints, and lost revenue. Over the past seven years, Six Sigma concepts are increasingly being implemented in the healthcare industry. Despite the challenges of adopting these concepts, the healthcare industry uses them to improve services rendered quality, increase efficiency and reduce fatal human errors. Primarily because Six Sigma is based on a comprehensive approach on improving the human and transactional aspects of the process (human performance and task completion). In the case of JPS, the factors that determine quality and efficiency are the flow of information and interaction with the patients. Using the Six Sigma DMAIC process improvement approach, JPS Emergency Department should be able to streamline information flow and achieve strategic business results (p.

Physicians are faced with competitive practice environments that challenge their financial survival. The application of Lean Six Sigma, as you stated, is important to improving care, reducing costs, and ensuring sustainability of physicians practice. Medical practices have changed over the years as more physicians are seeking higher levels of practice security as payers change reimbursement models. Reimbursement models have changed from payment for each service rendered to the patient to fixed payments for all of the care required for a specific procedure or episode of care, and fixed payment for all the care required by a population of patients for a period of time. Income growth can no longer be achieved by seeing more patients but on value

Six Sigma focuses on defect prevention; improving quality, cost savings, and reducing waste by helping

Management tools, for example Lean and Six Sigma, have been considered when developing process flows in emergency departments to measure quality. These principles have been applied to hospital services delivery and have been reported to be highly successful in the ED setting and the inpatient setting in case reports in peer-reviewed journals (Eitel, D., et al., 2010). A manufacturing idea has been imbedded to emergency room departments to identify bad processes and restructure them to ensure other key quality measures are met. Measures should effect one another as quality measures correlate in emergency medicine. “These business management methods can provide concepts and tools to hospital and health care system to help us plan, design and manage our day-to-day operations, processes, and service delivery systems (Eitel, D. et al., 2010). Measurements occur in many forms in an emergency room that help predict outcomes in

A quantitative study conducted by Lifvergren, Gremyr, Hellstrom, Chakhunashvili, and Bergman (2010) analyzed the experiences and from a hospital group during a three-year period after the introduction of Six Sigma. It reports on 22 large Six Sigma improvement projects, their results and influence on other improvement activities. The study shows that 75% of the completed projects reached their goals within 18 months. The average net cost savings per completed project/year was $55,300. Overall, the results showed that Six Sigma is a useful concept when trying to improve healthcare processes. They recommend that Six Sigma should be an addition to the improvement practices used in healthcare development initiatives. It was also observed that the Six Sigma program can create much organizational pull regarding quality management and improvement efforts if teamwork is applied.

The concept of Six Sigma was developed in the early 1980’s at Motorola Corporation (Harry and Schroeder, 2000). Six Sigma can be defined as a statistical measure of the performance of a process or product (Kumi et. al., 2006). It is used as a quality control mechanism, which seeks to reduce defects or variations in a process to 3.4 per million opportunities thereby optimizing output and increasing customer satisfaction (Sambhe, 2012). Sigma is representing the standard deviation, a unit of measurement that designates the distribution or spread about the mean of a process (Six Sigma Academy, 2002). In addition, the Six Sigma uniquely driven by close understanding of customer needs, disciplined use of fact, data, and statistical analysis, and diligent attention to managing improving, and reinventing business processes (Pande, P., et. al. 2000). The Six Sigma methodology uses statistical tools to identify the factors that matter most for improving the quality of processes and generating bottom-line results. The Six Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure,

Lean Six Sigma should be seen as an integrated framework now to initiate the change in culture and operations, leading to business and operations improvements. Organizations should try to become lean as much as possible and should leave a space for Six Sigma methodologies and should move forward to other philosophies such as agility and innovations. Every lean or Six sigma tool is not suitable for each company but most suitable tools and techniques should be identified and implemented in Lean Six Sigma frame work to get the competitive position in the

Over the past decade, surgical services have increased dramatically. This is extremely important to hospitals since surgical services make up forty percent or more of the overall hospital revenue. With advancements in technology, some hospitals are offering digital operating rooms, robotic assistance and telesurgery. Even with these advancements, hospitals are having difficulty ensuring patient safety, streamlining workflow and cutting cost. In the U.S., the average operating room operates at sixty-eight percent capacity. If a hospital could increase its surgical schedule by one additional surgical case per day, it could generate an additional $4 to $7 million in annual revenue. One of the biggest concerns for a hospital is timeliness since delays and postponement of surgeries can create a bottleneck in the system resulting in patient dissatisfaction. The hospital has decided to use Six-Sigma since it is the best strategy to address the issues in the operating room.

Today, the major predicament faced by pharmaceutical and medical device companies is the need for expediting the drug or device development cycle in order to place their product in the market at the prime time to attain market success. The process for such realization requires streamlining of efficiency at every stage of the process right from research and development, clinical research, regulatory compliance, production, sales, and marketing. Incorporation of Lean Six Sigma without prior streamlining and optimization of the process will limit the opportunity to benefit from the speed and robustness that the technology proposes. The dearth of theoretical and empirical evidence on the applicability of Lean Six Sigma technology in research conducted by medical device and pharmaceutical companies led to this position paper to present the proficiency of this technology with real-time illustrations.

behind this conclusion is that both Lean and Six Sigma have their benefits but also their

Lean is a process where creating more value to customers by minimizing wastage, time with less resources. Lean organization understand the customer value and try to increase proceed which adding more value to the business. In order to accomplish the lean thinking

These criteria will help the laboratory and the staffs to formulate their strategies and the quality of their services. After formulating the SWOT analysis, the supervisor and the head department can use the lean six sigma project to solve their problem. This system uses the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control (DMAIC) Framework and also focuses on eliminating wastes and non-valuable work in time and resources. According to Sadyadi, “The application of Lean Six Sigma in the clinical laboratory has proven to be beneficial by enhancing quality services and meeting regulatory requirements that specifically identify the need for adequate work space and reduction of laboratory errors” (Sadyadi 2013). This statement describes that using strategies in the clinical laboratory will help to increase the type of services they render for customers’ satisfaction. Using a strategy like the lean six sigma helps them to create the appropriate action to solve their existing problem. The supervisor can watch the video from the last two months to see the existing problem that they