Lean Six Sigma
Lean Six Sigma is a management technique consisting of both Lean and Six Sigma techniques. This produces a methodology that relies on a collaborative team effort to improve performance by systematically removing waste (Lean) as well as defects, overproduction, waiting, non-utilized talent, transportation, inventory, motion and extra-processing (Six Sigma).
Lean production, often simply “Lean,” is a systematic method for the elimination of waste within a manufacturing process. Lean also takes into account waste created through overburden and waste created through unevenness in workloads. Working from the perspective of the client who consumes a product or service, “value” is any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for.
Essentially, Lean is centered on making obvious what adds value by reducing everything else. Lean manufacturing is a management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) and identified as “lean” only in the 1990s.
Six Sigma, like Lean, is used to improve the quality and efficiency of operational processes. During the past decade, these process improvement techniques increasingly have been applied outside of the manufacturing sector, for example, in healthcare.
While Lean focuses on identifying ways to streamline processes and reduce waste, Six Sigma aims predominantly to make processes, such as those used in clinical laboratories and pathology group labs, more uniform and precise through the application of statistical methods.
The principles were originally developed by Bill Smith of Motorola in 1986 as a way of eliminating defects in manufacturing, where a defect is understood to be a product or process that fails to meet customers’ expectations and requirements. The name refers to a quality level defined as the near-perfect defect rate of 3.4 defects per million opportunities. As a process improvement strategy, it gained much attention through its association with General Electric and its former CEO Jack Welsh.
This combined process improvement has become popular with clinical laboratories as a way to streamline laboratory processes and cut costs in a time when labs are increasingly pressured by downward price trends for lab tests. At the same time, labs are able to increase value offered to “customers,” that is, patients.
The Lean Six Sigma concepts were first published in a book titled Lean Six Sigma: Combining Six Sigma with Lean Speed by Michael George and Robert Lawrence Jr. in 2002. Training is provided through the belt based training system similar to that of Six Sigma. The belt personnel are designated as white belts, yellow belts, green belts, black belts and master black belts, similar to karate.
New Study Demonstrates How Lean Labs Outperform Peers
CEO SUMMARY: A new study provides powerful evidence that laboratories using Lean, Six Sigma, and similar process improvement methods consistently outperform conventionally managed laboratories. Using data sets from 100 laboratories, including 14 Lean/Six Sigma laboratories, consultant Tho…
Quest South Florida Wins Governor’s Award for Quality
CEO SUMMARY: It’s an important milestone for the clinical laboratory profession. Quest Diagnostics Incorporated South Florida, based in Deerfield Beach, Florida, earned the 2007 Florida Governor’s Sterling Award for quality. This is only the second laboratory in this country to win a …
Lean/Six Sigma in Labs Becomes More Common
CEO SUMMARY: Across healthcare, laboratories, hospitals, and health systems are leading the drive to incorporate quality management methods into clinical services and daily operations. This fall, in Atlanta, the Lab Quality Confab will provide a detailed look at this trend, with 50 speake…
Christian Hospital Laboratory Goes Lean with Solid Results
CEO SUMMARY: As part of a major restructuring program under way at Christian Hospital in St. Louis, Laboratory Administrator Bette J. Stanley decided to apply Lean quality management methods in projects to improve work processes in phlebotomy and the chemistry department. Using internal q…
Sonora Quest Receives Highest AZ Quality Award
CEO SUMMARY: After several years of intense effort to implement quality management systems and Six Sigma techniques throughout its organization, Sonora Quest Laboratories earned the Arizona Quality Program’s highest honor—the Governor’s Award for Quality. This is an accomplishment w…
Pinkus DermPath Earns ISO-9000 Certification
CEO SUMMARY: After learning about quality management systems at a recent Executive War College, the lab director at Pinkus Dermatopathology recognized how such techniques could be used in his lab to improve quality, reduce errors, and create a better working environment for both pathologi…
Big Seattle Med Center Adopts “Lean” Methods
CEO SUMMARY: Laboratory and pathology services at Virginia Mason Medical Center are an integral part of its hospital-wide Lean quality management initiative. Because of the importance of lab test data to so many clinical services, the laboratory often finds itself making key contributions…
Is Nation’s Best Quality Laboratory in Arizona?
CEO SUMMARY: Without much fanfare or public attention, one lab is achieving recognition for quality and service excellence possibly unmatched in the clinical laboratory industry. In 2003, Sonora Quest Laboratories received Arizona’s Pioneer Award for Quality—the first healthcare provi…
Mayo’s Scottsdale Hospital Lab Hits Big “Lean” Home Runs
CEO SUMMARY: Are Lean and Six Sigma techniques ready to make a big contribution in the laboratories of smaller hospitals? If you ask lab managers at Mayo Clinic’s Scottsdale Hospital, the answer is an unqualified “Yes!” Their 15-week Lean project in the hospital’s high volume core…
First-Ever “Black Belt” Certified In an American Hospital Lab
IT WAS A BIG DEAL in the laboratory of Grant Riverside Hospital of Columbus, Ohio when Lab Site Manager Sandra Hood received her certification as a Six Sigma Black Belt on January 23, 2002. That’s because hospital administrators had selected the laboratory to be hospital’s guine…
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXII, No. 6 – April 21, 2025
Now that a federal judge has vacated the FDA’s LDT rule, The Dark Report analyzes the judgement and notes the various steps the FDA could take in response. Also, lab testing at pharmacies is proving to be less successful than was once anticipated.
See the full table of contentsHow Much Laboratory Business Intelligence Have You Missed?
Lab leaders rely on THE DARK REPORT for actionable intelligence on important developments in the business of laboratory testing. Maximize the money you make-and the money you keep! Best of all, it is released every three weeks!
Sign up for TDR Insider
Join the Dark Intelligence Group FREE and get TDR Insider FREE!
Never miss a single update on the issues that matter to you and your business.