Lean & Operational Excellence and Independent ERP Consultants
Lean & Operational Excellence Blogs
Applying Lean in Pharmaceutical R&D Labs
Over the past few years, many of the leading Pharmaceutical companies have rolled out extensive programmes to the labs on their manufacturing sites. The better programmes (i.e. those based on the key ‘Real Lean’ principles of levelling, flow and standard work and properly structured and supported) have achieved very impressive results. Pharmaceutical R&D labs however, are significantly different than the Product and Raw Material testing labs found in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing so can Real Lean work in R&D Labs? Read more »
Slow down… so that you can speed up.
Slow down....so that you can speed up. Sounds like something Yoda would say. Component sub-optimization for increased system performance. Read more »
Batch and Queue, very non-Lean… right? Think again
In the ideal world, yes, batch and queue mentalities are very non-Lean. However, in the real world they can be a necessary and valuable step in approaching a stable and standardized environment. Read more »
5S in labs; a waste of time, right?
Deployment of 5S in a laboratory setting is a time consuming effort and one which in itself delivers little in terms of productivity gains. So why bother…? Read more »
Lean Thinking for Laboratories
While it might sound like some sort of fad diet, “lean” in the context of business improvement refers to a specific methodology that originated in the Japanese motor industry toward the end of the 1980s. Over the decades, this lean philosophy has been successfully adopted by many companies across a broad spectrum of industries and, more recently, lean thinking has filtered into laboratories. The focus of a lean laboratory is to test samples in the most efficient way possible in terms of cost, or speed, or both. Although most of the key principles of lean apply in labs, the specific challenges facing laboratories require significant adaptation of standard lean tools. Read more »
Improving Lab Performance with Six Sigma
Can and should Lean be applied in Labs?
Lean originated in the automotive industry and it’s easy to see how the tools and concepts are a good fit for that type of manufacturing. It’s much less obvious however that Lean can and should be applied in Labs. In recent times Lean Lab projects have become quite common but…
Is Lean really an appropriate strategy in the Lab environment or are labs just blindly following trends? Read more »
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. Read more »
Load Levelling - the first step towards lean warehouse operations
Warehouse productivity improvements of up to 20% can be brought about by applying load levelling principles to workload planning. Read more »
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. Read more »
Premium Content
Register now for FREE access to KNOWLEDGEBANK - our premium articles, reports, newsletters and video/webinar highlights.
Set-up a Call
A consultant will contact you.
Lean Clients
