Improving laboratory testing cycles through Kaizen

Situation

A chemical research laboratory was struggling in reagent development work because of slow planning and reporting process within the scrum cycle for reagent development and testing. The administrative work was taking too high portion of chemists and laboratory technicians time (about 12 hours compared to the goal of 8 hours) and lead times from planning to reporting were typically long (around 110h). A TPI Kaizen was arranged aimed to streamline the process to speed up reagent development projects and reduce project team discomfort.

Approach

1. Pre-Kaizen Activities:

   • Retrospective time evaluation of steps involved in the scrum process.

   • Mapping of the current state process flow.

2. Daily Action Plan:

   • Monday: Introduction, lean tool training, current state mapping, waste observation, and root cause evaluation.

   • Tuesday: Waste reduction ideation, future state training and mapping, trying out improvements.

   • Wednesday: Sustainability training, finalizing future state and action plan, and report out.

3. Key Deliverables:

   • Current and future state process flow diagrams.

   • Standard work documents including the good practices.

Results

Improvements Achieved:

• Labor time for each sprint planning and reporting reduced from 12 hours to 8 hours (33% improvement in productivity).

• Plan changes or "Fly-ins" in test cycle reduced from average 1.4 to less than 0.7 (50% improvement in quality of planning)

• Enhanced agility in lab work after implementing the new process and about 20% improvement in lead time.

• Increased job satisfaction and flexibility in task scheduling.

• Positive feedback from the team regarding reduced frustration and increased job satisfaction.