Visual Control

Mistake proofing at a pharmacy:

I was not feeling well, so went for a check up yesterday.I was diagnosed and given a prescription for my medication. I went to the pharmacy and noticed a difference in the way medication was stored. The last time I went to the pharmacy was over a year ago. I saw that, there were three kinds of visuals used .. Since, I was the only customer; I asked one of the pharmacists, to explain the visual system. She was very kind and gave a detailed explanation of all the visuals.

Poka Yoke- Mistake proofing

The first type was, numbers like 200, 150 written on long colored flaps attached to the lids of the tables containers. She said that, tablets with the same name have different milli gram content. On a busy day with too many customers, although they check the name of the tablets, they some times do not check the milli gram content. This might lead to giving the wrong medicine to the patient. Hence as a countermeasure, they have come up with flaps attached to the lid of each container, containing the name and the milli gram (mg) content of each medicine. The flap attached to the lids of the containers are long, they have to be lifted to take the medicine out. The pharmacist explains this way, they are able to ensure that they pick up the right medicine. She also mentioned that there is also a possibility of mistake with eye and hand coordination Even though the pharmacist is looking at Medicine A, she might pick up medicine B, placed right next to Medicine A. The flaps on the lids ensure that the pharmacists check the medicines while retrieving it from the container. A very good example of mistake proofing.

5S- Seiton

Another visual which I noticed, was that of 5S, where they had marked rows and columns for inventory control. Each row and column was linked to the computers system, thus enabling fatser inventory checks at the end of the months. The rows being marked as A,S,C,D and columns beings marked 1,2,3,4,etc.

Visual confirmation: reduces waste of searching/ looking up and or checking for availability.

The third visual that I noticed was a small bright orange circular seal, which was stuck on some of the containers. She explained that in the case of some medicines, the pharmacy holds only one type of milli gram content. For e.g. 500 mg. But some times, the doctors prescribe 250 mg of the same medicine. The orange seal helps in identifying these medicines, thus reducing the searching time for a medicine, if the prescribed milli gram of medicine is not available at the pharmacy.

This is my first experience of seeing lean being implemented in Health care in Japan. Although, I get to see a lot of visuals every where I go, at stations on roads, in trains. I will write about visuals in Japan in other coming posts soon.

Leadership and Lack of Internal communication

Product A scheduled to be delivered yesterday (12/16/09) to the customer was not assembled and the product that was not supposed to be assembled was completed instead. The production plan indicated that product A was supposed to be delivered yesterday. The customer changed their material hadnling system and we have been having material shortage problems since then. Hence some times, assembly has to be stopped due to material shortage. But, all the material required for product A was present. There was no material shortage and no manpower shortage. But, the product did not get assembled and hence was not ready for shipping.

When asked why was the product no assembled ?

The following answer was received. The shop floor workers A,B,C,D,E gave the following answer. Worker A "thought" that worker B would do the assembly, worker B "thought " that worker C would do the assembly and so on. They also thought that the group leader would do the assembly or ask one of them to do it. But, since they had not received any orders from the group leader yet, all the workers including the group leader went home for the day. ( the assembly was suppose to take place after office hours- i.e during over time). Yesterday morning (12/16/09), when the sales in charge checked , if Product A was ready for shipment. He found that it was not ready.

The production manger did not know about this problem, as it is the group leaders responsibility to inform the production manager, in case there is a problem. if production is completed on time. No follow up information is given to the production manager. ONLY if there is a problem, then the production manager is involved.

I would like to request for comments on the above problem in terms of- what is the problem here? is it the group leaders lack of responsibility? is it the production managers lack if involvement with the shop floor to check if the delivery deadlines are met.
is it the lack of internal communication within the group ? or is it simply lack of follow up?

I felt that there was lack of responsibility and poor communication as one of the causes for this problem.In Japanese the following term - Horensou- hohoku, renreaku, soudan. Update, communication, seek advice, was not followed.

What are your thought?