Document Management Software and Workflow Automation
Theresa Fisher is the Network Administrator for Branch-Hillsdale-St. Joseph Community Health Agency, a public health department in Michigan that covers 3 counties and is spread out over 65 miles in 3 offices. Learn how document management helped this in this video testimonial.
A fact that the lean community has known for a long time is beginning to dawn on the rest of the world … that there are two kinds of companies in this world. There are those that are driven by simple ideas – value for customers, respect for people, common sense accounting, keeping things moving through straightforward processes without wasting time or money. Then there are those that picture business as some grand, complicated financial scheme propelled by increasingly sophisticated marketing theories.
“It used to take 48 hours to a week for a physician to receive a paper record from the warehouse,” says Nancy Cothern, Director of Physician Management Service. “With our new electronic document archive, physicians now receive the records they request within the hour. In addition, the solution enabled us to terminate our relationships with the storage warehouses – saving us approximately $140,000 last year in warehousing costs alone. We expect our savings to be even more substantial this year…”
I have learned that the quickest way to judge whether a company is seriously on the lean path or not is to take a look at their metrics. The first inclination of most management teams is to use lean as a set of tools to optimize the same old, wrong things.
I am rarely the first lean consultant my clients hire. I do, however, expect to be the last one they hire. I typically work with companies that have been at lean for a number of years but are frustrated by a lack of results. The big question I get is why they can’t see the cost savings they know they have made through their various kaizen, Six Sigma and rapid improvement events.
In my last post, I overviewed the most popular business process improvement methods, including the oft criticised but much used, Six Sigma. Let’s take a deeper dive into Six Sigma.
For over twelve years, iDatix Corporation has been committed to helping organizations achieve continuous process improvement through innovative tools, advanced technology and expert instruction. The company is proud to announce that it will now be hosting the Manufacturing Leadership Center with world renowned lean expert Bill Waddell.
Many mistakenly believe the game of rock, paper, scissors is a game of chance. Actually, it’s an exercise in quick-thinking strategy development and implementation. And, guess what?! Paper is chosen least often in the game as players subconsciously think it a losing play. And it is. Not just in the game but as a strategy in business too, particularly for manufacturers. Paper documents are the weak point in any manufacturer’s operation and here’s why…
View our on-demand webinar where you will discover how Lockheed Martin and ClosetMaid were able to fill their manufacturing gaps and increase efficiency.
No market segment seemed more suited to enterprise resource planning (ERP) use than manufacturing. The processes were highly structured, repetitive, and identical in this assembly-line world. But manufacturing is a business as much as it is a producer and as such it needs more than software that can rinse and repeat.
The FOBA is not as large or elaborate as some of the others, but the people were friendly, their machines were impressive and they engraved my name in a pen for me. They had a couple laser machines on display. I asked one of the gentlemen about their laser engraving machine and he offered to [...]
With the iDatix booth located at the far end of the North hall, I pass by hundreds of exhibitors every day. One booth that always caught my eye was from Lincoln Electric. Their intelligent robotic system is different than any of the other robots I have seen at IMTS, I have seen some impressive machines. [...]
ROFIN is one of the largest laser exhibits in the North hall. Their greenmix product, built in Switzerland, is a revolutionary solution for effective copper welding with lasers. It is used for spot welding highly reflective metals and is ideal in industries such as aerospace, automotive and defense. A laser solution such as this means [...]
Yaskawa Motoman certainly stole the show in the North Building this year. With a wide variety of robots on display, including a Black Jack dealer nicknamed Dexter Bot, crowds could always been seeing gathering at their booth. Several of their systems combine robotics with lasers. Their dual arm service robot will challenge you to a [...]
The Fanuc robots in the South building are contenders for “Most Impressive.” With over 100,000 robots installed in the US and 250,000 worldwide, they are the leading supplier of industrial robots. The Gakushu Learning Robot was the first I encountered in their massive booth. Another amazing display involved two robots working together. The largest robot [...]
