Lean Manufacturing

Surge Capacity in Labs

Published by Tom Reynolds in Lean Laboratory, Lean Manufacturing, Lean Programs on July 17, 2020

One of the key goals of ‘Lean Lab’ is to create lab processes that operate and are resourced at the ‘levelled demand rate’. This enables the Lab to efficiently and productively meet the needs of the business.

Why can't my department get ahead and be productive

Published by Andrew Harte in Lean Laboratory, Lean Manufacturing, Lean QA on October 9, 2018

In operations where the short interval (e.g. daily or weekly) workload varies, the most common method of distributing the work is to share it equally between the available people. We call this method “available work through available people”. The consequence of this approach is that even low daily workloads expand to fill the day resulting in poor productivity. Carefully designed standard work can improve your department’s performance by consistently making the most out of people’s time.

Synchronising Planning, Manufacturing & QC

Published by Karen Wrafter in Lean Laboratory, Lean Manufacturing on June 10, 2010

Day to day operations of individual departments in life science companies rely on many decisions made outside of each department’s own remit. When embarking on a Lean strategy, the pillars of operational excellence (Levelling and Flow) can be supported by increasing awareness of how each department functions and explaining constraints.