Productivity Improvement
Optimizing QC Lab Testing: A Lean Approach
Optimizing QC lab performance requires a good foundation of workload leveling and standardized work to mitigate volatility before systematically targeting the waste in the testing process. By streamlining testing, combining similar runs, and eliminating redundant testing, labs can significantly reduce cycle times, cut costs, and improve overall operational efficiency.
The Misapplication of Value Streams: The Pitfalls of Small Dedicated Work Groups
While dedicating small groups to narrow work sub-streams is well-intentioned, it often misinterprets Lean principles and introduces severe inefficiencies due to workload volatility. Combining these work streams reduces variability and required staffing, allowing organizations to maximize productivity and truly optimize their value streams.
Improving Laboratory Productivity after Workload Increases
Has your QC Lab grown naturally over a period of time from a small lab into a bigger lab due to a growth in business demand? Are your employees under a lot of stress with never ending emails and phone calls from production and supply chain looking for sample approval? This expansion in activity is great news for the business but is most likely causing operational problems in your lab.
Why can't my department get ahead and be productive
In operations where the short interval (e.g. daily or weekly) workload varies, the most common method of distributing the work is to share it equally between the available people. We call this method “available work through available people”. The consequence of this approach is that even low daily workloads expand to fill the day resulting in poor productivity. Carefully designed standard work can improve your department’s performance by consistently making the most out of people’s time.
Lean Organisation for Lean Programmes
You’re a site leader three months into your Lean Programme and on the face of it things are going well but you’ve got doubts that the organisation structure is supporting your lean journey in the way you’d want.
Synchronising Planning, Manufacturing & QC
Day to day operations of individual departments in life science companies rely on many decisions made outside of each department’s own remit. When embarking on a Lean strategy, the pillars of operational excellence (Levelling and Flow) can be supported by increasing awareness of how each department functions and explaining constraints.
Why are Lab SOPs and Work Instruction so Bad?
Typically, laboratory Standard Operating Procedures and Work Instructions are wordy, patch-worked documents and a hindrance to testing analysts and reviewers alike. Over their life cycle, procedures usually become increasingly difficult to decipher due to multiple disjointed revisions. As a result, training and routine testing often relies on the retained knowledge of key experienced personnel, with an accepted culture of ‘Chinese whispers’. This dependence on undocumented hints and reminders can be tackled by applying Lean thinking to the design and layout of Laboratory SOP’s.
