Failure Factors in Lean Six Sigma Implementation in Healthcare

H Elsayed and DL Santos

Systems Science and Industrial Engineering (SSIE) Department Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science

Binghamton University- State University of New York Binghamton, NY 13902-6000 - USA

Corresponding author’s Email: santos@binghamton.edu

Author Note: Hadir Elsayed is an undergraduate Industrial and Systems Engineering student at Binghamton University. This effort is the culmination of both an independent study and a summer research project sponsored by the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP). Daryl Santos was the faculty advisor to both her independent study and LSAMP summer research.

Abstract: Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is an implementation method that combines Lean methodologies (waste reduction) with Six Sigma methodologies (continuous improvement). As such, LSS aims to continuously improve outputs/outcomes and to eliminate wasteful processes. Successful implementation of LSS improvement projects have allowed industries to save money by eliminating many forms of waste such as excessive production, scrap, and rework. Customer satisfaction is maintained by implementing standard work and inspection stations to ensure quality and prices can also be stable or reduced due to reducing costs to do business. LSS has been implemented in many different industry settings. While there are many publications of successful implementation of LSS in healthcare, this work is interested in learning from unsuccessful LSS implementation efforts. This paper provides a literature review that analyzes the failure factors of LSS efforts in healthcare in the hope of pointing out pitfalls to avoid in new implementation efforts.

Keywords: Lean Six Sigma, Healthcare, Failure Factors

1. Introduction

Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is a continuous improvement methodology that aims to reduce the cost of poor quality, improve the bottom-line results, improve business processes, and create value for the customer and the shareholder. The six-sigma component is a highly statistical-based data driven method and is based on continuous improvement and diagnostic tools with a goal of reducing variation (Jimerson et al., 2009). Lean concepts have their history in reducing waste and was largely implemented and popularized by the Toyota Production System (TPS). When LSS was first introduced it was mainly implemented in manufacturing areas and its success inclined many other industries to follow the same path. One of the notable implementations was by General Electric (GE). GE’s CEO Jack Welch implemented LSS in 1995 – two years afterwards, the company reported $700 million in corporate benefits (Bhasin, 2012).

One of the many non-manufacturing industries that adopted LSS is healthcare. Hospitals and health facilities began implementing LSS to increase the patients’ satisfaction and make the system more efficient as well as decrease costly waste (Myrick et al., 2009). While LSS has been successful in many industries, including healthcare, this effort seeks to examine reasons why LSS improvement efforts may have failed in healthcare and elsewhere.

Proceedings of the 6th Annual World Conferenceof the Society for Industrial and Systems Engineering,Herndon, VA, USAOctober 19-20, 2017

ISBN: 97819384961-0-3 117