It’s not news when I say that the laboratories are under pressure today. The main challenges are:

• Increasing workload every year
• Budgets are frozen or even shortened each year
• Increasing demand for faster results and more STAT requests

Employees are complaining about the ever- increasing workload, ever-changing protocols and methods, increasing production and increasing demand for reporting even faster. In other words, laboratories has to do more and more with less budget. Collaborations and / or mergers of laboratories contributes to the restlessness of the laboratory world.

Laboratory managers try to survive by automating more and more. In addition, they are busy with many projects at the same time. The danger of this is that insufficient time can be spent on looking into current processes and how the new systems to be used will affect the processes. This may result in an inefficient use of the newly purchased, usually more expensive systems. In addition, the decisions are usually taken from top-down. This results in dissatisfied employees, prolonged absenteeism, higher work pressure, etc.

Is Lean & 6 Sigma the solution for a future-proof laboratory?

Lean & 6 Sigma is a management philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement culture. At Lean, it is briefly summarized to eliminate the inefficient steps in the process, and at 6 Sigma it is about reducing the variation in the processes. Lean & 6 Sigma has proven itself in many other industries. With a correct Lean transformation, the result is overwhelming. Lean has a lot to offer, but of course, it’s not a magic formula that you can instantly enter.

“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it either”

Most laboratories have realized that another approach and other management style is needed today to surivive. More and more laboratory organizations have met Lean & 6 Sigma. Because most laboratories do not have a clear Mission & Vision, which are summarized in up to 5 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), the entire Lean & 6 Sigma mindset already falls shortly after launch. The KPIs must meet the following criteria:

• Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Realistic and Time-Taken (SMART)
• Visible to all employees
• They must be monitored regularly and kept up to date

Employees should be given the space to design and implement their own solutions. Another challenge is that most laboratory managers run Lean in addition to their current tasks. As a result, they cannot spend enough time and effort to switch from Lean implementation to Lean transformation. In order to increase involvement, all employees must at least have a basic knowledge of Lean. In addition, there should be a minimum of full-time 1 Lean Green Belt employee.

HP2Improve is a company that specializes in Lean transformations within diagnostics. The purpose of this is to assist laboratory managers and / or employees to look forward to processes that result in:

• Self-managing and improving teams – Increased employee involvement and improved customer satisfaction
• Consistent quality & faster lead times – Optimizing processes by eliminating hidden wastes in the process.
• Improving cost-effectiveness (ROI) – Reduction of costs by eliminating defects in the process.

Want to know more about HP2improve or this subject? Call Hasan Polat 06-25222307 or look at www.hp2improve.com. We are ready to find out what we can mean for your organization.