Levelling
The Seven Deadly Sins of Lean Programmes - Why Lean Programmes often under perform
In an effort to deploy Lean across their organisations, many companies have invested heavily in large multi site programmes supported by dedicated internal Lean resources. The results from these programmes are quite often patchy and underwhelming. So why do these programs under perform?
Waste in Laboratories
Laboratories are not the same as manufacturing environments so do the standard Lean ‘Wastes’ even apply in Labs? BSM can show you the "right" wastes to tackle to unlock the performance of your testing laboratory.
The Trouble with Dedicated Resources: Leveling the Workload
Dedication of resources may seem like a good way to have “Subject Matter Experts” (SMEs) get through work quickly, but it gives rise to a costly productivity penalty. The antidote is to level the workload across the team (without compromising the important role of the SME!).
Why can't my department get ahead and be productive
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.
Deviation and CAPA Management – Milestone Management for a Robust, Transparent and Efficient Process
It is an inescapable fact that deviations will occur at various points along the production cycle. An organization’s discrete approach to the management of such deviations will define how laborious and complicated the ensuing investigation and correction process is.
Real Lean – What's in a name?
Real Lean is the term used by BSM to describe a specific methodology, one which enacts the actual core principles of lean and delivers real value stream optimisation, both financially and operationally, for its clients.
5S in labs; a waste of time, right?
Deployment of 5S in a laboratory setting is a time consuming effort and one which in itself delivers little in terms of productivity gains. So why bother…?
Synchronising Planning, Manufacturing & QC
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.
Small dedicated work groups: (A misapplication of the value stream concept)
Recently in laboratories, there has been a notable shift towards dedicating resources to specific work streams and sub-streams, in the attempt to improve service levels. This is due in large part to a misapplication of the key Lean principle of developing ‘Value Streams’.
