By Glenn Boylan, PMP
PMI Atlanta’s February Healthcare Forum featured a great presentation by Michael Cooley about the Facilities Supply Lean Kaizen project he completed at Grady Hospital in Atlanta.
Andrew Gurbaxani opened the meeting welcoming everyone and thanking our Alpharetta hosts Phillips Healthcare. Andrew also reviewed upcoming PMI Atlanta events, and reminded everyone the chapter has numerous volunteer openings where folks can help out… and earn PDUs!
Andrew then introduced the evening’s speaker, Michael Cooley from Grady Healthcare. Mr. Cooley is a Senior Remodeling Project Manager for Grady. His responsibilities include remodeling projects and minor repairs throughout Grady’s facilities.
Michael completed his Bachelor’s degree at Capella University in Business Administration with a specialization in project management, graduating Magnum Cum Laude. Michael is also a journeyman carpenter with Carpenters Local 225 in Atlanta, and has worked on many commercial healthcare construction projects. At the Healthcare Forum, he reviewed his Facilities Supply Lean Kaizen project, which had significant positive impacts for Grady.
The Facilities Supply project addressed the problem of Grady’s maintenance staff having to spend a great amount of time looking for tools and equipment in order to complete work orders, resulting in wasted time. Michael’s team felt that streamlining the process of obtaining supplies and equipment would increase quality and customer satisfaction, as well as decrease costs.
The defined scope for the project was the specific issue of replacing hand sanitizers and soap dispensers in the hospital. This is a frequent work order for the maintenance staff and the existing process had turned what should be a very quick job into an ordeal that sometimes took up to 30 minutes.
Michael’s team used the Kaizen improvement methodology on the problem. They started with a Waste Walk and observations to define the existing process. The resulting process map showed that maintenance staff had to frequently search through three poorly organized storage locations just to find the necessary equipment.
His team implemented the “5S” process to address the problem. “5S” stands for Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain. Sort was the process of consolidating the three storage areas into one, and removing what wasn’t necessary. Set In Order referred to having a place for everything and having everything in its place. Shine involved cleaning and inspecting the equipment and tools to make sure they were ready for use. Standardize established the steps of the new process. And finally Sustain made the new process a regular part of daily work so that it become a habit.
The results were fantastic. The old way of doing things had a process score of 0.1 (a process score less than 1 is considered poor) and averaged 24 minutes. After Michael’s project team implemented their changes, the new process scored a 3.0 and reduced the average time to 9 minutes. This resulted in over $38,000 in cost savings for Grady along with increased customer and employee satisfaction.
Michael wrapped up his talk with a question and answer session, and Kim Satterfield closed the meeting by thanking Mr. Cooley and the forum participants.
The next Healthcare Forum will be on Wednesday, March 16th.