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'Lean Manufacturing': The Secret to Lab Organization
By Greg Mattson, RTPO  It's June 2001, and I'm standing on the production
floor of the Toyota Car Company in Toyota City, Japan. I'm
awestruck at the level of organization I see at every turn. Tools
are color-coded and placed at arm's reach, and the employees are
performing a well-choreographed dance of seamless production.
Nothing is wasted; nothing is overlooked. On this day the company
is running at 98 percent efficiency, with less than one percent
defects and only ten minutes of operating inventory at any given
time.
The production manager tells me that Toyota's organizational
secret is actually very simple. "We view production problems as
opportunities, not inconveniences. Of course, there is more to the
organizational equation, but this is the most basic and important
lesson to learn," he says. I begin to realize the simplicity of
this message and how easily it can be applied to the O&P
industry. And the benefit of this organizational secret begins in
the most often neglected aspect of many O&P clinics—the
production lab.
Revealing Potential Profits
For instance, a common lab production problem that is seen as a
major inconvenience is misplaced tools. If we take a closer look we
can see exactly how this common problem can detract from a
company's efficiency and profit margin. Let's take an employee who
earns $17 an hour and estimate that this employee wastes 15 minutes
a day looking for misplaced tools. At $17 an hour, this is costing
the company an estimated $3,000 dollars a
year.* It's scary when you start doing
the math. Misplaced tools comprise a relatively simple problem with
many possible solutions, but why are so many O&P production
labs "living with" this problem? As insurance reimbursements get
lower and lower each year, it's hard to ignore the potential
profits hiding in the simple ways of fixing these
inconveniences.
I have been reading business organization books for years and
have had some degree of success integrating their theories into my
workplace. But the way I view O&P lab production management
changed that June in Japan when I studied with a consulting group
directed by Takeshi Kawabe. Mr. Kawabe was the pupil of Taiichi
Ohno— the father of Toyota's production system and the man
who brought Toyota's simple secret, called "lean manufacturing," to
the modern world. In a nutshell, lean manufacturing is based on the
principles of zero defects, one-piece flow (completing one job at a
time) and just-in-time inventory.
On this trip, our group also toured Toyo Pneumatics, Neosys,
Takagi, Toyota Home, and Denso—all large companies that have
been practicing lean manufacturing for many years with great
success. Their success is based on the philosophy that organization
is the culture and that viewing problems as opportunities and
solving them is rewarded and expected as part of the job, as
opposed to the philosophy of living with problems that most
companies follow. In the upcoming articles in this series, I will
present real-world solutions my employees and I have found as we
have worked together to solve problems in our O&P fabrication
lab. I will focus on components of lean manufacturing and other
simple methods of lab organization, such as improved company
communication, tool organization, inventory functionality, and
efficient workspaces. These solutions have produced improved profit
and cost savings, more production with less effort, better patient
care, and more effective employee teamwork.
*These figures can change, based on company pay
variables. I estimated these figures on the basis of: $17 an hour
employee labor @ 80 hours per month, based on 26 pay periods. Other
costs added in were figured on the basis of our company's benefits
costs: 401K, health insurance, Social Security taxes, LNI payments,
paid break times, paid vacation, and bonuses.
Greg Mattson, RTPO, is production manager for Cornerstone
Prosthetics and Orthotics, and co-owner of Fabtech Systems, both in
Everett, Washington. He works with a Japanese consulting group
called Gemba, which specializes in lean manufacturing and Kaizen
principles. He has been a speaker at O&P conferences and
seminars, presenting on "Standards and Structure for Lab
Management." 
Table Of Contents - October 2002
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