All Entries in the "Operational Excellence" Category
The Decline of Health Services in Alberta
The Triumph of Professional over Real Management The past 20 years have seen a steady decline in the provision of health services to Albertans. Waiting times for surgeries, diagnostic services and emergency room visits is increasing, costs are escalating and quality of care has remained constant at best. A day doesn’t go by without the
Inspections and Audits
Developing a cost effective approach Some organizations equate quality with the level of inspection. The greater the number of inspections, checks, audits or evaluations, the greater the level of quality that is assumed to be in the final product or service. Unfortunately for these organizations, just the opposite is true. Quality assurance is only required when processes
Analyzing WCB Injury Rate Data
How to properly analyze and interpret Alberta injury rate data On October 01, 2010, the Alberta Government publically released workplace injury & fatality records. This made the Province the first in Canada to release a comprehensive list. Anyone can now access information about worksite injuries and fatalities involving more than 140,000 employers insured by the Workers
The New Management Thinking
Managers are being flooded by a host of management ideas and models — Six Sigma, process re-engineering, Lean Enterprise, Lean Production, operational excellence, quality management, value chain analysis, business process redesign, process outcomes management and performance measurement. Whatever else these things are intended to produce, confusion is definitely a by-product. To help work through the
Lean Certification Standards from ASQ/Shingo Prize
The American Society for Quality (ASQ) and the Shingo Prize recently announced their joint Lean Certification Book of Knowledge (BoK). Now that these standards are out, they provide an important benchmark against which organizations can examine their existing Lean training and development programs. For those experienced with Lean, much of the content will be familiar. There are
Implementing Lean and Lean Six Sigma
The most frequent question we are asked by clients these days is how to get started with Lean or Lean Six Sigma. The second most frequent question is some variation of: What is Lean Six Sigma anyway? Let’s answer the second question first and then dive in on how to get started.
Master of Cycle Time: Little’s Law
In physics, laws are a fundamental part of understanding how systems operate. E=mc2 would have to classify as the most famous example. From these three simple letters, physicists and others have been able to greatly improve their understanding of how the universe works and make predictions about how things will behave under differing circumstances –
Understanding Value using Dr. Kano’s Model
How do you define quality? That’s an important question for those engaged in quality improvement. Defining things can be difficult, doubly so when the definitions concern something as vague as quality. Yet define we must, especially if we want to measure current quality levels, or improvement to quality. After all, if you can’t define something,
Flexibility, The Third Dimension to Performance
A year ago, businesses were planning for major expansion. Now, attention has turned to how to weather a recession. Soon, expansion plans will be back. It is difficult to keep up. Actually, it is impossible. Is there better evidence that the key to survival is not in prediction or forecasting? After all, who do you
Systems Thinking and the Health Care System
Originally Published as a Converge Newsletter for Operational Excellence (OpX) In response to the demand for pieces referenced in The Decline of Health Services in Alberta, we have republished this article from 2004. Health care, like other industries, is seeking ways to improve efficiency and effectiveness. In Canada, this has taken on a new urgency
