Lean Supply Chain for Healthcare

Overview: Healthcare supply chains play a critical role in supporting clinical operations in healthcare systems and hospitals. Furthermore, various sources point out that supply chain operations constitute 30 to 40 percent of healthcare costs, making it the second highest cost category right behind personnel costs. Yet healthcare supply chains continue to present an array of challenges to all the stakeholders, which typically consist of the users/customers (that is, the healthcare providers), the GPOs, the distributors, and the manufacturers. Addressing these challenges is further complicated by the intricate network of relationships and sometimes misaligned objectives between the above stakeholders.   

In this webinar, the presenter will briefly review a typical healthcare supply chain and discuss the merits of using the LUM approach, where LUM stands for “Low (or Logical) Unit of Measurement.” Subsequently, he will focus on the second half of the supply chain, that is, the delivery of supplies from the hospital dock to multiple points of use in the hospital/medical campus. He will review the conceptual framework and design questions related to delivery/supply systems such as “call systems” and “milk run systems,” both of which have been employed in Lean facilities of various types. The webinar will also include some of the highlights of U-M’s experiences in applying the LUM approach at the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS). 

While a basic understanding of Lean is desirable, it is not mandatory for the purposes of the webinar. 

Speaker: Yavuz Bozer, PhD, Professor, University of Michigan College of Engineering

Cost: $29 per recording link – AHRMM Members; $139 per recording link – AHRMM Non-members

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This webinar was recorded on July 14, 2011.

Biography: Dr. Yavuz Bozer received his M.S.I.E. (1978) and Ph.D. (1985) degrees in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. Professor Bozer's professional experience includes full-time employment with SysteCon Division of Coopers & Lybrand (where he was involved in various industrial facility layout and material handling system design projects for major manufacturing and distribution companies) and his full-time work at the Material Handling Research Center at Georgia Tech. Since joining the University of Michigan, he has been involved in various industrial projects with DaimlerChrysler, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, Industrial Design Corporation, JOFCO, Optical Imaging Systems, Ryder Integrated Logistics, Steelcase, Sunbeam-Coleman, Virco, and Xycom.

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