Category Archives: Lean Engineering

Lean Symposium in Mozambique and Waste Identification Diagrams

10 Saturday Sep 2011

Posted by in Lean Engineering

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Last week I was lucky enough to visit the capital of Mozambique, Maputo for a week-long conference. Mozambique is definitely an interesting place! Its just north of our border (South Africa) but a totally different world. For one, everybody speaks Portuguese. There are a number of local languages of course, but the common vernacular is Portuguese! The Portuguese have left behind more than just the language, and you can see it in the architecture and the distinctive Mediterranean ‘flavour’ of the locals. Unfortunately, civil war and floods have ravaged the country, leaving much of its people in poverty. Roads are unmaintained and buildings are dilapidated in the capital. Also, the imminent problem of corrupt police creating indescretions and threatening to lock you up (unless you pay them of course) is an annoyance tourists have to deal with.
Note: In Mozambique, carry your passport WHEREVER you go!  I didn’t get the memo it seems :/
I was there for the Portuguese-Mozambican Congress on Engineering and presented in the Lean Management Symposium.  Not speaking any Portuguese was…interesting…especially at an engineering conference, but it was actually a pretty cool experience. One thing is for sure, the Portuguese are an awesome bunch of people! They are really friendly, accommodating and they know how to party!
 

Lean Machine!

07 Thursday Oct 2010

Posted by in Lean Engineering, School Projects

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I’ve decided that the time for thinking, talking and planning is over. If I’m going to get anywhere with my thesis, I’m gonna have to start doing! And Fast!

So I barge into the supply-chain department’s office yesterday morning at the hospital and declare
EngChic: “It’s time to be revolutionary!”  
I lift the large, heavy white-board off its stand and start frantically cleaning it (using a bandage and a bottle of detergent that I suspect is meant for medical wound sterilization).  I’m met with an array of responses, from blank stares to fits of giggles to outright screeches. 
Z: “What happened to EngChic?”
F: “I dunno, she just came in and started talking like a crazy person”
S: Waaaa! Hahahahaha
I make a big, beautiful visual control system called an ANDON board, showing the stock that had been requested by the wards but not issued due to out-of-stock items. The response from everyone was surprisingly good! The storemen liked how that they could see what was out-of-stock, the manager liked how he could keep the storemen in check, the data capturerers liked how they could communicate info to the ward staff without having to search for documents, the ward staff liked that they could see when their stock was coming! 
So simple, but why the hell had nobody done it before???
So this morning I burst into the office rounding everyone up and shipping them to the boardroom for a Lean Workshop. I simulated a simplified production line and got everyone to participate in ‘lean games’. Everyone loves to play games, and I really think it was helpful to get them to visualise flow! Of course, I had a lot of fun jumping up and down, screaming at the play-operators to hurry and produce faster coz ‘the patients are suffering!’ 
I sneakily snuck in a couple of lean principles like waste, flow and value-to-the-customer to get them thinking…Brainwashing is a slow process! I even invited the ward clerk I had a tiff with last week in the hope that it would show her the ‘bigger picture’ and get her to buy into the changes she’s been resisting, but we ended up having another screaming match which ended in a tense truce…lol…you can’t teach some old dogs new tricks…
The rest of the morning was spent decorating the office with bright and colourful visual controls like KANBAN! Lean can really be fun at times! I love how creative you can be! 
This thesis is teaching me so much about real life…Really, you don’t know anything until you ‘do it’…Most of my time has been spent talking to people, building relationships, trust, convincing them to see things differently and to buy into my ideas…convincing them it was their idea in the 1st place…
The question is, where is ‘Mechanical Engineering’ in all of this? Well, someone told me the other day that the root meaning of ‘engineer’ is someone who makes things happen…so I guess the answer to the question is ‘everywhere’.

Running Around a Hospital, Flying Around the World…

28 Tuesday Sep 2010

Posted by in Engineering Research - Yummy Yummy!, Lean Engineering

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What a mixed up day!
It started as usual: wake up at the crack of dawn and head out to Athlone’s GF Jooste Hole, I meant Hospital!!!
Only to realize that all the great progress I thought I’d made yesterday had been undone by a few confused people. No worries, all I had to do is follow (literally follow) a stack of papers around the hospital all day…
This included running (literally running) up and down a lot!

I finally got the process to flow…but thats was just the trial-run for the trauma ward. When the other wards switch from ordering once every two weeks to ordering on-demand, there will be scale-creep (I love that term) effects that will pop up.. Hopefully I can get it going soon so I’ll have a chance to problem-solve and work out the bugs!

I also booked my ticket to Vancouver for the IMECEE Conference for ASME in November. I had planned to route back through Hawaii (half way between Melbourne and Vancouver), but decided to go to Melbourne instead for a week or so! Fun times, unluckily though I’ll be routing through the Middle East like 3 times!!!!

Check this out:


Cape Town-Dubai
Dubai-Toronto
Toronto-Vancouver

Vancouver-Dubai
Dubai-Melbourne (this one is really dodgy!)

Melbourne-Random city in the Middle East
Random city in the ME- Cape Town?????

Ahhh! I thinkI will be flying more than being in Vancouver!! And you know how much I LOVE flying!

Counting

09 Thursday Sep 2010

Posted by in Engineering Research - Yummy Yummy!, Lean Engineering

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Doing is so much harder than learning! Aaah!

It was all good and well making plans and setting timelines and setting deliverables and making action-plans, but when it comes down to the actual work, its just damn scary!
I spent 5hours counting stock today, asking the poor nurses running around doing their daily duties, “whats the name of this” and “this is a catheter right?”. Sadly, I had to leave early at 12 for an interview so when 11:30 struck and I hadn’t got half way with the counting,I decided to abandon the effort and head home.
Oh well…I guess theres tomorrow.
One positive though, at least tomorrow I’ll know what I’m up against!

Sigh…
Oh yes, and I went to Beluga today! But the sushi is just not the same without you…

The Leaner Side of Life

08 Wednesday Sep 2010

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I’m working at a hospital in the middle of the cape flats,the worst hospital in the district.
I’ve taken on the enourmous task of trying to make this sick hospital better. Currently, patients enter the trauma ward and end up waiting hours, even days to be seen by a doctor.
The type of patient that checks himself into the trauma ward is often the type of patient that can’t wait that long,as u can imagine, its chaos.

So what is an engineer doing in this mad crazy world of doctors and nurses and patients and sickness?
Didn’t I deny every attempt my medical parents made to drive m$e into a career in medicine? How did I end up doing my final year thesis in a hospital?
The truth is,I proposed this project, it wasn’t assigned to me and I didn’t choose it off a list, I proposed it. (Like the hero I am),I believed that I could make this sick hospital better.
I ges I didn’t realise what a HUGE challenge that would be!
To be honesty,I love the theory, lean is my dream, it just makes so much sense to me! But I’m finding more and more each day that real life is so ridiculously hard to deal with.
I have to work with people and get them to buy into what I’m suggesting, people who have been doing their job one way for years. Now this ‘little lady with big ideas'(or so the hospital superintendant calls me)
Is gonna come in and turn it on its head! Wow, what do I think I am?

All I know is I’m gonna have to toughen up, and soon if I’m gonna make it work here!