Case Study: IMPROVING HEALTHY BY GETTING LEAN

1. What perspective(s) of organizational effectiveness best describe the application of

lean management practice?
Decribe how specific element of that perspective related to the interventions described
in this case study.
Open system perspectives of organizational effectiveness best describe the
application of lean management practice. Open system is a regularly exchanges
feedback with its external environmentm it compose own subsystem during
transformation from input to output. Inside the organization are numerous subsystems.
Yet lean management is one of the transformation process to increase internal
subsystem effectiveness by running an organization that supports the concept of
continous improvement, and enhance customer value by eliminate any waste of time,
effort or money. In other words lean focused on getting the right things to the right
place at the right time in the right quantity to achieve perfect workflow.
However specific element of internal subsystem effectiveness in open system
perspective related to the interventions described in this case study is organizational
efficiency, adaptive and innovative.
Organizational Efficiency (Productivity)
Organizational efficiency is a measure of the relationship between organizational
inputs and outputs, the more output could achieve with similar amount of input or
recourse, the more productive it is. As Sunderland Royal Hospital improving efficiency
through redesigned their work flow to cut out 34 miles of unnecessary walking each
day where employee able to be more productive by spending more time with patient or
job task compare to before redesign.
Adaptive
Adaptive is to makes the transformation process more responsive to customers needs.
Lean management create more value for customers with less recourse by identifying
each step in business process and then revising or cutting out steps that do not create
or reduce customer value. Bolton Hospital NHS reduced average wait times for
patients with fractured nips by 38% that increased customer value.
Innovation
Lean management anable internal subsystem effective by innovation, which enables
the company to design work, processes that are superior to what competitors can offer
and redesign work path out of the box to create more customer value. Flinders Medical
Center untilized innovation by mapping out the steps in the patient journey and
modified incoming emergency patients are immediately streamed to one of 2
emergency team to avoid lower priority patient got bumped down the quede when
more serious case arrived.

Case Study: IMPROVING HEALTHY BY GETTING LEAN

2. Does the lean management ignore some perspective of organizational effectiveness?

If so, what are the unintended consequences of these practices that might undermine
rather than improve the organizations effectiveness?
Yes, the lean management ignored some perspective of organizational effective, which
is organizational learning process in organizational learning perspective, rewards for
performance in high performance work practices perspective.
Organizational Learning Perspective
Sunderland Royal Hospital does developed human capital thru seeking way to reduce
and remove waste from work process, yet lack of developing structural capital.
Structural capital consists of the supportive infrastructure, process, and database of
the organization that enable human capital to function. When key person who
implement lean management in Sunderland Royal Hospital left, without structural
capital, hospital staff will deadly follow the flow as what have invented earlier which
may not able to fit the current or future environment.
Sunderland Royal Hospital able to complete organizatinal-learning processes by
preserve the knowledge that embedded in the hospitals system and structure. After
the key person left, structural capital will systematically trnasfer knowledge and provide
meaningful information about how the hospital or lean management should operate. In
other words, hospitals staffs able to innovate the lean mangement to fit the
environment change.
High-performance work practices (HPWP) Perspective
Sunderland Royal Hospital does believe that human capital is an imprtant source of
competitive advantage of organization. In other to generate the most value from this
human capital, Sunderland Royal Hospital has to work hard in rewards for performance
to keep employee motivated. Motivation is one of the key resources to retain
employee. As they invested to build human capital, that will be a lost or negative
impact to the organization if unable to retain human capital. Negative impact as
organizational become less competitive advantage which employee work with
competitors.
In order to retain employee, Sunderland Royal Hospital may consider Highperformance practice (HPWP) perspective that enhance employee involment with job
task, job autonomy, competency development and rewards performance and
competency development.

Case Study: IMPROVING HEALTHY BY GETTING LEAN

3. In what situation, if any, would it be difficult or risky to apply lean management

practices? What conditions make these practices challenging in these situation?
Changing working environment
Difficulty to apply lean management when people are resistant to change on their
working place even if the management is dedicated enough afforts in trainig program
and explaining the value of new practice. Especially when workershad long experience
in a particular field encouter new challenge of changing their way of working and when
they need to be convinced in the benefit of the new technique. Organization may need
to let go some of the employees who cannot accept the adoption of change. Other than
that, employees that not support the implementation efforts may cause demotivation to
person who invented the changes.
Competitive advantage
Risky to apply lean management practices is the influence of employee leaving the
company in the advanve level of lean management. Employees skill, knowledge and
experience necessary for working specific tasks thoughout the organization can be
difficult to copy and hence provide a platform for sustainable competitive advantage.
When key members of staff were being headhunted by other larger organization willing
to offer substantial benefits, to retain these staff become time consuming, expensive
and can be major impact on morale in single status firms.

Case Study: IMPROVING HEALTHY BY GETTING LEAN