Flow

The Seven Deadly Sins of Lean Programmes - Why Lean Programmes often under perform

Published by Tom Reynolds in Lean Programs on January 17, 2019

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

Published by Tom Reynolds in Lean Laboratory on January 17, 2019

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.

Bringing Flow to the Review and Release Process

Published by Gerard Doorley in Lean Laboratory, Lean QA on January 17, 2019

The concept of flow is a key element in achieving lean operations. This fact has not gone unnoticed by laboratories but many still struggle to achieve real flow and very often the final review and release of samples can prove to be somewhat of a bottle neck. The final review and release tasks should not be thought of as being autonomous or decoupled from the testing process and should be incorporated in the flowed process.

Optimising QC Lab Testing

Published by Gary Ryan in Lean Laboratory on October 9, 2018

QC test methods and the overall testing approach employed in laboratories can themselves be inherently wasteful. What steps should be taken to identify and eliminate such waste?

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.

Deviation and CAPA Management – Milestone Management for a Robust, Transparent and Efficient Process

Published by Gerard Doorley in Lean QA on June 21, 2018

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?

Published by Ger Conolin in Lean Laboratory, Lean QA, Lean R&D on August 28, 2015

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?

Published by Karen Wrafter in Lean Laboratory, Lean R&D on August 31, 2011

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…?