Author: Peter Ward

This note is the second of two focusing on the design and management of a single, mass vaccine delivery site at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center (OSUWMC) and examining the contributions of lean thinking and practice to the cycles of design, fulfillment, and use in this one site. Read part one, "Building the Process," which describes the design of the new mass vaccination system and its rapid ramp-up to high volume.

This essay is the first of two focusing on the design and management of a single, mass vaccine delivery site at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center (OSUWMC) and examining the contributions of lean thinking and practice to the cycles of design, fulfillment, and use in this one site. Look for the second, which will be published on August 16. For sixteen months, we have mainly seen two kinds of stories about the Covid-19 pandemic.

I recently had a conversation with a veteran operations manager about his new company and its plan to deploy a lean strategy. In fact, I often hear lean thinkers describe lean as a strategy. But is it? Lean thinking and practice certainly is strategic in the sense that it is an all-encompassing approach to running a business.   However, I recall other conversations with executives and management experts, especially those outside of operations, that suggest disagreement with this view.

As you prepare your organization’s at least partial return to the office, I urge you to take the time to reflect on what you’ve learned about the work. Treat the four months since the Covid-19 pandemic sent millions of workers in various occupations to shelter and work at home as an experiment. The slice of the workforce that was able to move their work to home—estimated to be somewhat more than a third of all workers—includes the group known as knowledge workers.

To an extent, an organization’s long-term success depends on its ability to shift its focus quickly when conditions change suddenly. Covid-19 provides a vivid example where virtually all organizations in every industry had to discover how to survive amid a new reality: retail stores shuttered, office work redistributed to millions of “home offices,” travel curtailed almost completely, etc. Health care provides the most dramatic example of the need for such a pivot. (Later in this essay, I return