Category: MBOE

For most of us, the sigma level – or defects per million opportunities – for New Year's resolutions would be abysmal. We have 365 opportunities in a year to implement what we resolve to stick to and in reality, how many do we take advantage of? Whether it is skipping that dessert or going out for a run or practicing that hobby, rarely do we stick to our plan - but we keep complaining and hoping that we will achieve that goal. New Year’s resolutions are hard to keep.

When our Master of Business Operational Excellence health-care students spent some with Kathryn Correia, chief of Minnesota’s HealthEast Care System, she brought up a great point about the things that slow us down. Most of the interruptions that impede the flow of care, she said, aren’t surprises. If a machine breaks down, we know that somewhere we missed out on the preventive maintenance. If patients, providers or staffs are waiting for too long, we know that we have not really designed our processes to meet the demand.

Some processes in our daily lives we easily take for granted – grocery shopping, for example. Our Master of Business Operational Excellence students in a recent visit to the Dublin, Ohio, Giant Eagle location saw firsthand that the grocery business is serious business.

Last week, we hosted our industry and health-care MBOE cohorts on campus, bringing together dozens of professionals in a range of different fields. The principles and leadership skills we teach in each program carry many similarities, but there remain some key differences between health care and the rest of the pack. Shingo prize-winning author Jean Cunningham highlighted one of those when she visited our health-care cohort last week.

Our car was vandalized. We don’t know when it happened but we found it a couple of days ago. It was a shocking sight. The glass on the driver’s side of the window was broken and the shards were all over the seat and below. The center part of the dashboard was ripped apart and insides of the dashboard were hanging below. We do not know who did it and why they did it but the fact is that we felt violated. No one has the right to even touch let alone destroy what belongs to us.