Cleveland Clinic Case Study Solution
How Cleveland use lean, six sigma, PDA and FMEA to improve processes, create efficiencies and trim cost in surgical processing department (SPD)
Surgical processing department is central to the organization, it is used for keeping the inventories such as medicines, instruments, and other medical products and to sterilize the instruments and products to be used again. The inventories felt in this department are treated with extra care, and there should not be any mishandling as these products are used for the treatment of patients.
Cleveland make use of six sigma, lean management, PDA and FMEA to improve its processes. Through lean management Cleveland make use of the products again by sterilizing them properly as the instruments contains bacteria which are harmful for other patients. Once the instruments are used it cannot be used to the other patients so it requires proper sterilizing and treatment. In this way Cleveland make use of lean management to minimize the cost of these instruments.(Adrianzen, et al., 2014)
By using the process of six sigma Cleveland was able to manage the work on less timescales, accuracy was there and less margin of errors were there. The equipment and products were distributed to the centres in the given time period, with proper handling and proper packaging, the sterilizing process was done efficiently and these products were delivered to the clinics again at the given schedules. The information was recorded on the online system so that proper management can be done.
PDA helps Cleveland to mitigate the risk assessment and quality risk management, this is similar to FMEA but this is another tool to prevent the risks that may become the cause of failure for the organization. FMEA process helps Cleveland to identify the problems that are taking place in the SPD. It helps to develop a system that identifies the major components of failures and then perform risk analysis by identifying the overall risk that is involved in the process and lastly it helps to develop a risk mitigation plan.
Challenges for implementing process improvements
As the company reaches its maturity stage there are so many challenges and obstacles when it tries to implement the process improvements. For example if the company is trying to expand its territories there are chances of cultural barriers, barriers to entry and the main thing is to maintain its market share and financials. (Lomas J, 1993)
If a company tries to be efficient so its effectiveness decreases, or if it tries to be effective its efficiency decreases. To balance both of these things the management requires extensive research and development. (Bradford WD, 1997). Often companies schedules meetings to control the quality management and mitigation of risk but in real that is not much effective. Employees listen to the instructions but they are not willing to work on it unless excessive trainings are given to them.
Patients always want to be treated fairly with care. In the emergency cases there are mostly shortage of beds due to which the customers get dissatisfied. Even if the beds are there, the patients are not been able to entertain properly, these factors are due to improper management. Customers come to the clinics to be treated well and they want a good quality treatment not just with the doctors but they want good environment and safe equipment. (Koetter, 2007)
Clinics if work on MIS systems there are chances that the illiterate people will not get satisfied, as they want the paper work instead of paperless. Due to high cost of treatment poor people are also not able to get access to the clinics. High cost of the equipment also results in the inventories of the clinics to get expired, but as they cost of the equipment are more so doctors are forced to sell these on high prices. High financial cost also results in the organization facing real time challenges, if the profits are not properly aligned to the strategies the companies might face huge losses in the future and the decline stage of the company can occur where liquidation will be required.
Maintenance of the machines are too costly and if the machines are damaged so to buy a new one it required heavy investments.Technological changes also led to the company perform worse and go to the decline stage. The geographic location also matters, some companies open up their business at far places which results in total loss. Unskilled labour also results in a loss of a company. And unskilled management leads to poor management. (Anon., 2003)
Overcome these obstacles
To overcome these obstacles there are several methods. BPM is one way to reduce the risk, where redesign of the strategies are done. In order to achieve excellence the strategies are redesigned no matter new or old but are executed. Redesigning process is done to minimize the errors.(Suhrid Satyal, 2018)
The environment in the clinics should be as good as the doctors so that it can satisfy the needs of the patients. Six sigma and the lean approach is necessary in doing every business as it reduces the extra cost, it also helps in reducing the risk and errors. It helps to develop different strategies for future and it also helps in building alternatives for future uncertainties. TQM is another way to reduce the risk in the organization. (Anon., n.d.). ERP is done in some of the organizations which adds value to the profits of the companies.The financial position also determines the performance of the companies, in order to make the company profitable the assets should be used to pay off the liabilities, and the equity portion should be used to cover the equity portion. Even the maintenance of the machines are very necessary, it should be done on monthly basis. Adoption to the change in technology must be there, extensive research should be done regarding the trends and new innovations. Geographic location should be considered when opening up a business as customers won’t be attracted if the location is not preferable. Easy access of the equipment should also be there. Services provided by the companies should be of top quality as customers are only attracted if the services are good or they switches to other brands.
The labour or employees that are working should be trained and training should be given to them on weekly basis or when needed in order to mitigate the risk. The management should also be trained enough and they should re-engineer or restructure the organizational design when needed to make the company reach its missions and vision.
Are challenges different for service organizations rather than manufacturing companies?
The challenges for the industry are same as every organization faces these issues but for small clinics they might not face the issues on big scale as they mostly procure the equipment from other suppliers and they usually don’t have a SPD department. But for big clinics who has lots of centres operating in different regions they have to look forward for these factors keeping in mind the huge risk that is involved in the process. The management of big organizations must make use of the strategic planning and extensive research in every sector to prevent from risk and have a good solution to the uncertainties. (Co., 2007)
Giant clinics like Cleveland should focus on the operational, functional, financial, administrative, human resource sectors to prevent the risk. (Anon., 2006). The environment internal and external should be properly managed. The supplies and inventories should be timely delivered by creating good relationship with the suppliers and distributors. And also as large the company so as large is the risk of maintaining the status and environment. (Anon., 2006)
Large companies like Cleveland need to access all its departments and work efficiently and effectively to satisfy their customer needs and wants, if the customers are satisfied their clinics will prosper, and they will expand where they want but this is achieved through good research and development by looking at the economic trends and changes in the technology...............
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