Articles

Graham Canning, coordinator of the LERC Kata Research Network Group, draws on his experience of Kata and reflects on its take up by organisations and poses some questions on the research task ahead.

The purpose of this paper is to take a critical, analytical approach to explore the growth and spread of Lean through the academic and practitioner community over the last twenty-five years to understand the impact of the book The Machine that Changed the World on management thinking.

This article discusses the case of the application of lean thinking in Clinical Pathology – specifically in histocompatibility and Immunogenetics in the UK’s NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) organisation. It’s not only an excellent example of the application of lean in a broad healthcare environment, but it also demonstrates how lean can be used in highly technical and ‘non-traditional’ contexts, where core principles are used to guide improvements using a variety of tools, to deliver greater value.

It demonstrates the importance of adapting the implementation approach to the fit the needs of the service under consideration and the need to ensure a human dimension is built in to the programme.

Author: Tom Browne, NHS Blood & Transplant

For well over a decade continuous improvement approaches have been formally applied in the public sector in the UK and elsewhere, in an attempt to improve service quality and streamline processes, often in response to cuts in public expenditure budgets imposed by governments. While there are numerous examples of successful initiatives at a process level, questions remain about whether real systemic changes are being made that will produce the long term sustainable CI culture desired.

This article examines the nature of the lean thinking that has been embraced and calls for a debate on the development of a new definition of lean for public services.

Author: Simon Elias