Achieving excellence, a step at a time.

Results

World-class organizations talk about improvement outcomes based on “True North Measures”. In the perfect process, all activities are considered value-creating activities, and these activities are lined up for continuous flow. In this environment, the lead-time for products and services equals the cycle times for the value-creating activities. The process, products and services are created without any defects. Without any waste, the products and services can be generated at the lowest possible cost.

True North Measures are based on delivery of goods and services that can be created with perfect quality, at the shortest lead-time and at the lowest cost. Since improvement is not possible without the engagement of people, a measure of staff engagement or staff morale is often added to the True North Measures.

True North Category	True North Measure
People	Staff morale or staff engagement
Quality	Defects per unit of service or process outcomes related to meeting the customers requirements
Delivery / Access	Lead time for goods and services from customer need identified to customer need met expressed in time (minutes/hours/days)
Cost	Hours or $ consumed per unit of service. Typically a measure of productivity
Growth	Increases in revenues or volumes

Commercial Sector

Healthcare Sector

Flow Meter Manufacturing
Created one piece flow line reducing manufacturing lead-time from 5 days to 1.5 days (70% reduction) Used line balancing techniques to reduce required people power from 21 assembly technicians to 16 assembly technicians (24% reductions) Streamlined cell supermarket and implemented point of use delivery system to reduce on an inventory from $681,000 to $317,000 (53% reduction)

Month End Financial Close
Reduced turnaround time for month end close from 23 calendar days to 10 calendar days (56% reduction) Added a complete day for variance analysis within the 10 calendar days improving the quality of the reports Standardize templates and reporting to simplify user readability

Air Conditioning Manufacturing
Reduced Lead-time from 14 days to 4.5 days (68% reduction) Ontime delivery improved from 62% to 89% (44% improvement) Inventory Turnover improved from 6.2 turns to 10.3 turns (66% improvement)

Camera Manufacturing
Reduced manufacturing lead-time from 20 days to 9.6 days (52% reduction) Improved on-time performance from 91% to 98.2% Increased inventory turns from 3.9 to 8.3 (112% improvement)

Food Processing
500+ employees trained 17,000 feet of space recovered Over $1.1 Million in documented cost savings Changeover time for operators reduced 18% Machine downtime reduced 11% Employee safety increased

Water Systems Shipping
Ontime delivery increased from 70% to 80% $78,000 confirmed labor savings $30,000 in damaged product savings

Defense Sector OEM parts Distribution
Turnaround time from receipt of parts to put-away reduced from 5 days to less than 2 days (60% reduction) $150,000 a year in cost avoidance $135,000 a year in hard labor savings On time delivery increased from 78% to 96%

Engineer to Order Water Pump Processing
On time delivery increased from 73% to 92% Order turnaround decreased from 2-3 days to 0.4 days (67% processed same day) Bill of material accuracy improved from 81% to 87% Number of resources touching an order decreased from 7 people to 3 people

Agricultural Post Harvest Processing
Implemented flow and pull through standard work to reduce manufacturing lead-time from 15 days to 7 days (53% reduction) Improved packaging productivity resulting in labor savings from 18 to 9 personnel (50% reduction) Utilized standard work in fulfillment to reduce manpower from 5 to 2 personnel (60% reduction and reduced fulfillment time from 3 days to same day shipments (67% reduction)

Laboratory Medicine - Phlebotomy Services
Combined roles specimen collection and EKG testing resulting in labor savings from 6 technicians to 5 technicians (18% reduction) Implemented standard work for specimen collection and staff zoning to improve productivity resulting in the reduction of 5 open requisitions and 2 agency staff ($541,000 costs savings annualized) Improved collection reporting leading to $180,000 in increased revenue for collection services.

Laboratory Medicine - Phlebotomy Services

Combined roles specimen collection and EKG testing resulting in labor savings from 6 technicians to 5 technicians (18% reduction)
Implemented standard work for specimen collection and staff zoning to improve productivity resulting in the reduction of 5 open requisitions and 2 agency staff ($541,000 costs savings annualized)
Improved collection reporting leading to $180,000 in increased revenue for collection services.

In Patient Length of Stay Improvement
Reduced Acute Length of Stay by 15% across all programs (LOS reduction of 1.5 days per patient) Reduced discharge-planning resources by 17% by creating a new patient navigator role which combined discharge planning, clinical coordination, and resource utilization functions (reduction of 5 FTE)

Emergency Service Length of Stay Improvement
Reduced average emergency department length-of-stay from 2.1 hours to 1.1 hours per patient for lower acuity patients with 9% higher patient volumes. (47% reduction) Reduced average emergency department length-of-stay from 5.1 hours to 3.3 hours for non-admitted medium acuity patients. (35% reduction) Reduced the left-without-being-seen percentage from 6.1% to 0.78% (allowing ~2000 more patients to be seen each year)

Emergency Service Length of Stay Improvement

Reduced average emergency department length-of-stay from 2.1 hours to 1.1 hours per patient for lower acuity patients with 9% higher patient volumes. (47% reduction)
Reduced average emergency department length-of-stay from 5.1 hours to 3.3 hours for non-admitted medium acuity patients. (35% reduction)
Reduced the left-without-being-seen percentage from 6.1% to 0.78% (allowing ~2000 more patients to be seen each year)

Outpatient Rehabilitation Services Improvement
Increase in number of clients seen per clinician per day from 8 to 12 (50% increase) Increase in patient satisfaction (overall rating of care) from 90 to 96 (7% improvement) Reduction in time from approval to initial visit from 12.3 days to 4 days (67% reduction)

Physician Lead Clinic Flow
Lead-time reduced for medical record preparation from two weeks to 2-3 days (75% reduction) Patient total visit time reduced from 80-90 minutes to 40 minutes (50% reduction) Provider capacity increased by 3 patients per day Provider workday decreased from an 11-hour day to an 8-hour day with documentation, e-mail and voice mails completed by the end of each shift. (27% reduction)

Diagnostic Imaging Improvement
Reduced MRI Pt LOS by 24% while reducing staff MCT by 42%. Increased a 2 X-ray unit capacity by over 100% negating the need for 2 techs and an additional machine. Value stream improvement in MRI resulted in a 18% increase in daily throughput with 25% less technologist manpower yielding annualized savings of $100K. Optimized Imaging schedule utilization with a net result of additional 15% capacity.

Diagnostic Imaging Improvement

Reduced MRI Pt LOS by 24% while reducing staff MCT by 42%.
Increased a 2 X-ray unit capacity by over 100% negating the need for 2 techs and an additional machine.
Value stream improvement in MRI resulted in a 18% increase in daily throughput with 25% less technologist manpower yielding annualized savings of $100K.
Optimized Imaging schedule utilization with a net result of additional 15% capacity.

Mental Health Outpatient Referral Processing
Rejected referrals received per month reduced from 47 per month to 23 per month (50% Reduction). Reduced the referral processing time from 30 days to 6 days. (80% reduction) Reduced the cost of travel in support of referral process by $800/month (20% Reduction)

Surgical Services Improvement
Reduced the cost per case from $1290 to $1150 over nine months (10.8% reduction). Reduced overall budget variance by a favorable 14% Increased same day surgical volume by 10%.

In Patient Model of Care Delivery
Using lean principles, two in-patient units changed their organizational structure with a blend of regulated and non-regulated healthcare professionals using evidence- based care guidelines. Mix change resulted in $2,200,000 in annual labor costs across 14 IP units. New processes, managed visually, resulted in significant levels on increased patient satisfaction.