Building Lean From the Ground Up

Session
Lean / Six Sigma

Authors
Nancy Henroid
Project Manager III
Kaiser Permanente - San Diego

Jenny Button
Project Manager III
Kaiser Permanente

Description
We will provide an overview of our journey into the implementation of Lean using existing resources to implement Lean from the ground up. This includes review of a successful Lean effort, learnings and success factors from both the process and operational perspectives, and building the momentum for future work.

Abstract
In 2007, Kaiser Permanente San Diego began a "grounds up" effort to use Lean methodologies to improve operations. With strong support from San Diegos "CFO", a number of existing staff members were trained in Lean techniques, and use of Lean to make positive change began. This presentation will cover this journey - from the initial concept of how we approached the use of Lean, to underlying processes put in place for success, and finally through a specific case study (admissions of elective surgery patients) and learnings from our various other efforts. We will cover how our initial Lean projects, small in scope (e.g. admissions of elective surgery patients), are now building to larger scope projects sometimes through simply expanding the boundaries (e.g. admissions through pre-op of elective surgery patients). This will not be simply a conceptual overview - we will include tangibles examples, results and specific learnings from both our identified case study and other efforts. With multiple Lean projects now under out belt, our presentation will also include our use of specific Lean tools (e.g. Value Stream mapping and process flows, action plans and PACE charts, etc) and our struggles in finding the most effective tool(s) in varied situations.