Lean Through Visual Management

One of the simplest and yet most effective lean tools to aid a laboratory to efficiently manage workloads is visual management. If you don’t see it, you can’t solve it!

Labs can often be overwhelmed with multiple metrics losing sight of prioritisation, working through backlogs and firefighting urgencies in the moment. Visual management, whether digital or in the form of a physical board, creates a lens that informs the entire team of their current status and where to focus prioritisation. A visual management board should be designed to be simple and focused, avoiding information overload that can distract from the key aspects of performance. Many industries have expanded what they track, beyond process and delivery, including areas such as Quality, Safety and People.

When it comes to workflow in a laboratory, there is always some volatility that can arise in different forms, for example; sample volumes, urgent requests, equipment capacity issues or even people availability. This is where the benefits of a visual management system can be utilised to better understand potential bottlenecks and adjust scheduled aspects of the workflow to make the optimal decision, tackling the volatility as it arises.

A visual management board should be designed to be as simple as possible with the ability to create adjustments, without generating too much effort. Without good visual management, testing stations in labs can become siloed, due to a lack of visibility to the wider team. Role cards play a crucial part in understanding the capacity of the team on a given day, balancing available work for available people through assigning combinations of routine and non-test task activities to fill roles. Role cards not only describe the tasks to be performed but also detail the time it takes to perform the activity. This creates better visibility on the capacity of the team while also informing the wider team if an area require extra resources, or, on the other hand, if extra resources are available.

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Daily team huddles at visual management boards create a structured forum to review performance, discuss challenges, escalate risks, and celebrate success. The meetings should be defined by an agenda, aligning the team on priorities while also promoting accountability. Visual management boards can often evolve to be become a gateway of information not only to the team but to the site and back down again, through processes such as Tier meetings.

Often labs that are not accustomed to visual management may interpret the concept of a visual management board as a form of micromanagement, highlighting the performance, workload and priorities of the team for all to see. When a visual management system is implemented and utilised however, teams realise that the purpose is not about monitoring individual team members, rather supporting the team as a whole, focusing on the processes and inclusion to make informed decisions by understanding bottlenecks, priorities and workload.

Celebrating success is naturally achieved through the visual management board where the team can showcase the challenges that have been overcome and take pride in the results delivered.

Laboratories can be volatile environments and the question isn’t whether they have data, it's whether the team can see it, understand it, and act on it every day.