Improving Healthcare and Industry Through Lean Manufacturing Training

BROOKLINE, Mass., Dec. 15, 2004 -- Lean manufacturing training from the nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI), including new workshops for healthcare providers and office processes, will help companies in the Southeast compete and grow.

The new Value-Steam Mapping for Healthcare will be presented Jan. 25 and is aimed at helping doctors, nurses, administrators, and hospital or clinic managers dramatically cut time and costs while improving the quality and delivery of healthcare. The new Business Process Value-Stream Mapping workshop will debut Jan 26. It will help companies apply lean manufacturing tools to office processes. The workshops are among six that LEI will run Jan. 25 to 27 at the Black Canyon Conference Center, Phoenix, AZ. LEI runs workshops in a different region every month on how to implement the principles of lean. The Phoenix workshops are:

   * Value-Stream Mapping (Jan. 25): learn a fundamental initial step that
     creates the blueprint for applying other lean tools and running kaizen
     events.
   * NEW! Value-Stream Mapping for Healthcare (Jan.25): learn how to use the
     value-stream mapping tool to enhance the patient's journey, support
     caregivers, and reduce costs by aligning patient, provider, and payer.
   * NEW! Business Process Value-Stream Mapping (Jan. 26): Apply value-
     stream mapping to administrative, professional, and transactional
     activities.
   * Creating Continuous Flow (Jan. 26): get the complete benefits of
     cellular production by focusing on the critical pacemaker process, the
     human factors of the operation, and how to balance the work to takt
     time.
   * Creating Level Pull (Jan. 27): transition from a traditional push
     scheduling system to a lean pull system of production control.
   * Making Materials Flow (Jan. 27): sustain continuous flow cells and
     lines with a dependable just-in-time material-handling system for
     purchased parts that uses timed delivery routes, pull signals, and a
     Plan for Every Part.

Workshops run from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Space is limited. For workshop content and to register, go to http://www.lean.org/Events/ or call (617) 713-2900.

Lean manufacturing principles cut costs and inventories rapidly to free cash and resources, which is critical in a competitive world economy. Lean supports growth and defends jobs by improving productivity and quality, reducing lead times, and freeing resources. For example, it frees office and plant space and increases capacity so companies can add product lines, in- source component production, and increase output of existing products. Companies implementing lean can take advantage of renewed economic growth by increasing sales while controlling costs.

The Lean Enterprise Institute is a nonprofit training, publishing, and research organization founded by James Womack, PhD, in August 1997. It has developed simple but powerful tools for implementing a set of ideas known as lean manufacturing and lean thinking, based initially on the Toyota Production System and now extended to an entire Lean Business System. For more information, visit the LEI News page at http://www.lean.org/WhoWeAre/LEINews.cfm.