Description

Today more than ever, hospitals are faced with the challenge to reduce costs and increase capacities while delivering increasing better patient care. For years, many organizations have struggled with the dilemma of which improvement program to use: Lean or Six Sigma. While some continue to debate the issue, others have come to realize that Lean and Six Sigma can work well together to improve processes, increase quality and drive out costs.

Lean is a methodology and a variety of tools that focus on eliminating non-value added activities (waste) from a process. Six Sigma is a methodology and a set of tools, including statistical analysis, to reduce process variation.

This five-day program explains how these two approaches complement one another and teaches several non-statistical tools in enough detail that participants can begin to apply them in their everyday work. Participants will learn actual applications, not just concepts, in plain language with worksheets, formulas, and step-by-step methodologies.

Participants will work in teams on pre-selected real-life processes utilizing Lean and the Six Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) approach in a series of hands-on exercises. They will also use the "Seven Tools of Quality" to analyze and improve a problematic hospital case study. On the last day, leadership is invited to hear teams report-out results and key learnings.

A Lean Health Care Certification will be offered to participants who have attended the five-day training and complete a project with approval.

Learning Objectives

The overarching learning objective of this course is to develop a comprehensive set of skills, which will allow you to effectively function as a change agent within an organization. Upon completion of this training course, participants will be able to:

• Relate Lean Six Sigma concepts to the overall business mission, vision, objectives, goals, and tactics.


• Understand and communicate using Lean Six Sigma concepts.


• Think about your organization as a collection of processes, with inputs and activities that determine the output and measures that assess effectiveness.


• Understand and apply the five step DMAIC model as a roadmap to organize process improvement projects.


• Understand the role of teams to achieve process improvements.


• Understand the difference between the Voice of the Process (VOP) and the Voice of the Customer (VOC) and the role they play in analyzing business processes.


• Identify the eight major forms of waste and use Lean concepts and tools to eliminate that waste.


• Understand variation in processes including patterns and measures of variation.


• Understand common causes of variation and special assignable causes of variation.


• Understand control charts (components, interpretation, and use in decision-making).


• Certification as a Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt.

Topics Covered

A successful Lean Sigma journey requires a strong focus on three critical areas that are covered in this Certification program:

1. BUSINESS PURPOSE (Generate value for the customer)


• What is Lean and Six Sigma, and, why combine them
• Understand Voice of the Customer
• How to develop a Business Case for improvement (SWOT, Balanced Scorecard)


2. PROCESS (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control--DMAIC)


• Recognize


• Voice of the Customer (VOC)
• Business Cases
• Critical Value Streams


• Define


• SIPOC
• Project Charter and RACI Chart
• Problem Statement (5W1H)
• SMART Goals


• Measure


• Eight Wastes
• Current State Value Stream Map
• Data collection (First-Pass Yield, Value-added Ratio, etc)
• Spaghetti diagram
• Variation


• Analyze


• Seven Tools of Quality
• Capability Analysis
• 5 Whys


• Improve


• Future State Value Stream Map
• Affinity Diagram and Action Plan
• Lean tools and techniques (5S+, Continuous Flow, Kanban, Quick Changeover, Mistake Proofing, A3 reports)
• FMEA


• Control


• Standard Work and Checklists
• One-point lesson
• Visual controls
• Control charts
• Run charts


3. PEOPLE (Build a continuous improvement culture)


• Lean Sigma roles and responsibilities
• Four stages of team development
• How to organize and conduct Kaizen “Blitz” events (projects)
• Effective and efficient team meetings
• Creative and critical thinking skills in problem solving
• Implementing Leader Standardized Work
• Building a continuous improvement culture (personal change)

Who Should Attend

Key candidates for Lean Six Sigma training and certification are:

• CEOs
• Presidents
• CFOs
• Vice Presidents
• Directors
• Managers
• Doctors
• Nurses
• Continual Improvement Specialists

Organizations in the manufacturing, health care and service-based industries, as well as in higher education, will reap significant benefits from employees attending this program.

Prerequisites

The students must bring a problem/project to work on in class with other employees.