Episode 61 - The War on Waste Paradox - Chapter 12 - Part 1 - Audio Book

A Consortium of Problem Solvers Podcast of Len Bertain's Audio Books

SMED has application in just about all businesses. We did a project at a hospital that was planning to expand their facility. They were going to raise $6 million for this new hospital wing. When we did a SMED analysis on surgery we found that they were using the surgery rooms to only about 20% of their capacity. For instance, when a surgery was completed, there was usually a 2-hour wait before the next surgery could begin in that room.

The doctors, in their unique Tribal Knowledge system, wanted to be businessmen on top of being doctors. After all, they were highly educated. As a group they didn’t want to spend more than $10 per hour to have the room cleaned up. When I suggested that they put a surgery clean-up crew together, the doctors argued that it was too expensive.

Then I asked them if they knew how much revenue was made from that room per hour. When they thought through spending $50 for an hour’s worth of work from a team of cleanup personnel versus $2000 of revenue that could be generated, it was a “no brainer” to make the decision. They followed the SMED process in detail. And it worked. Can you think of any applications of SMED in your business?

Enjoy.
Best,
Len Bertain