Achieving Flow

Do patients want to wait hours in an emergency room or physician office, or months for a scheduled medical procedure? No, of course not, ideally, they want to go from one process to the next – never having to wait. They need service to flow. When clients have to wait, the flow of the value stream has stopped.

Basic to Lean is creating processes where no interruptions occur. By removing waste and adding value for the client, we can reach our ultimate goal of flow.

Objective of this course:

This course describes key concepts of ‘flow’ and ‘pull’, including: the relationship of flow to client value, analyzing flow within the value stream, removing blockages to flow, improving layout for flow, and methods for balancing work and facilitating flow.

Describe flow and the principles of Lean
Explain benefits of improving flow for internal and external clients;
Identify Takt time as the measure of client demand, variable demand;
Explain flow, pull, push, and challenges that impede flow;
Describe the analysis of flow within the value stream;
Describe the process and how batch size affects flow;
Identify signs of poor flow, value stream map, and kaizen events;
Explain 5-S and flow – the impact of motion & transport, turnover, errors, and extra processing;
Describe steps to improve layout for flow
Describe balancing work and facilitating flow;
Explain the appropriate use of pull systems, Kanban, Supermarket;
Describe Heijunka and dealing with fluctuating demand.