Continuously eliminating waste and solving problems systematically are part of the synthesis of lean thinking, the Lean philosophy, which is gaining more followers every day around the world. This topic has just been added to the pages of the book Lean in Practice, organized by neurologist Li Li Min and collaborators, which will be launched on April 12th, at 17 pm, in the auditorium of the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM) at Unicamp.
This is a collection of chapters with experiences of applying Lean in the health sector and in the industrial sector. The work, published by Global South Press, was organized by the Health Management Innovation Group (Gigs) at Unicamp. There are 400 pages dedicated to 35 cases written by authors from different institutions.
The book will be sold in printed and electronic versions (eBook) at the Amazon, at iKindle and on other international platforms. The launch will take place in the context of VII Lean Six Sigma Congress. The electronic version will be free to download during the event and two days later, even for those who did not participate in the event. After this period, to have access, you will need to purchase the book at eBook.
Congress
The VII Lean Six Sigma Congress takes place on April 12th and 13th, in auditorium 5 at FCM. This year, the event maintains the tone of an open congress, not restricted to the health area. “This is because several innovations and best practices are happening in other sectors of society as well. All these experiences can be replicated”, highlights Li Li Min. Registration can be made electronically. An audience of approximately 300 people is expected to participate.
The meeting will be divided into thematic blocks. One of them is about industry 4.0 (Fourth Industrial Revolution), from the perspective of industrial automation and the Internet of Things (IoT). “There is already debate about how much automation will replace people. Toyota, the precursor of this thought, has already experimented with many innovations, but emphasizes that, until now, robotics and automation are still complementary to human activity, not substitutes", he explains.
Another topic to be addressed at the congress is education and how the proposal for Lean can contribute to offering more general education. “Today we talk about active teaching-learning methodologies, which in a certain way have a parallel with lean thinking. Maybe people have already heard about design thinking [approach that seeks to solve problems in a collective and collaborative way], which has many elements of the philosophy of lean thinking in its construction framework”, he informs. Li Li Min explains that the design thinking It is used as a management and time optimization tool, in search of answers.
A round table will discuss health practices using lean thinking, showing how much process efficiency has been improved and how much it has reduced and brought economic contribution with its application, in addition to customer satisfaction.
The neurologist says that the “icing on the cake” of the congress will be the last session, which will deal with Lean City – Lean City, addressed by professor emeritus and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Earll Murman. In parallel, an approach will also be made to the Lean Public, how lean thinking has been applied in government.
“When we talk about government we always think of a giant full of bureaucracies and we always wonder why the queue that people have to face is monstrous and why they are almost always mistreated in public offices. What is so different between a public office and a private one, if at the end of the day they involve offering services?”, asks the doctor. The municipal secretary of Administration of Campinas, Paulo Zanella, will present data from his administration at the head of the Administration Secretariat. Li Li Min will moderate the health and Lean City/Lean Public session.
In this edition of the congress, two international speakers were invited: Professor Earll Murman and Professor Sheryl Johnson, from the Technical Business School (WPI), the third oldest polytechnic school in the world, after MIT.
Lean Healthcare
At this event, some work will show a reduction in assistance time and improved service in the Emergency Room. According to Li Li Min, the two most painful areas in hospitals, in terms of waiting for care, are the Surgical Center and the Emergency Room.
“I'm going to the appointment but what interests me is the conversation I'll have with the doctor. Waiting time, TV and coffee don't interest me. Nobody goes to the hospital to read magazines either. Go to talk to the doctor and resolve any uncomfortable condition or illness", comments the event coordinator. "Waiting doesn't add value. What often happens is that the person goes to the doctor and waits two hours to be seen in just five minutes. The only thing that mattered was those five minutes. Now, how can we clean up everything else, which is waste?
According to him, Lean aims to eliminate waste and always improve a problematic situation. “The patient is our customer. But there is often a distortion that the health system is more important than the health system itself. That's why we talk about patient-centered medicine. It is the patient who should dictate the needs", he states.
Lean Healthcare thinking was born from the need to raise discussions for improvements in the healthcare area, especially a better quality of care: more efficient, more effective, patient-centered, equitable, timely, quickly.
gigs
The Gigs group had its origins in a focal point at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which discussed lean thinking, Lean Health Care, applied to healthcare. It was nucleated at FCM and Li Li Min became coordinator of this focus group. A partnership was established through emails and conversations with the director of MIT, who for years was director of Ednet (Education Network). Ednet was an organization within MIT responsible for spreading the knowledge of lean thinking around the world. Today, in addition to Unicamp, ITA and USP-Lorena also participate in this initiative in Brazil.
Several people were interested in the topic and felt the need to have a space, a common forum, to talk about what is new and best practices on different fronts. The group then began to see management in a more professional way, creating Gigs.
Activities became more linked to teaching and research. In teaching, there have been annual events, debating the best Lean practices, which began with Lean Day, then came the permanent Unicamp forums and, as just one day proved insufficient for the topic to move forward, Lean Day became the Congress of Lean Six Sigma.
Li Li Min highlights that, when Lean left Japan and went to the United States, there was a lot of skepticism among people. But it was well accepted and applied among North Americans, and also among Brazilians. In the automobile and space industries, there is no talk of another type of management, a managerial style.
