Systems Thinking

Part 1:

The CDC’s statistics regarding obesity in America is sobering when one considers the impact on our healthcare system and for employers who need to provide jobs that accommodate the physical characteristics that occur with obesity.  According to the CDC, the percentage of Americans adults over age 20 who are obese is 35.9%.  The percentage essentially doubles if t

Recently I gave a presentation at Safety 2013, ASSE’s professional development conference called the “Nuts and Bolts of Effective and Sustainable Ergonomics Programs”.  The “Nuts and Bolts” focused on the management system of ergonomics, not on the tools and methods used for ergonomic assessment.  I did this because the reasons most programs, whether ergonomics or other, fail is because they lack a management/business system.  Thinking of ergonomics in terms of a management system isn’t routine or common to most people who are responsible for ergonomics.  This was verified by the comments I

Last week I presented the first 5 reasons of my Top 10 list for why ergonomics (and lean) programs failure.  Here are the next five:

“We started off well but things have fallen by the wayside”.  “Employees were trained, they were enthusiastic and then things just started slipping away…”  The previous two statements are ones I’ve heard from companies who wanted to do ergonomics that then proceeded to get a program together and implemented who currently find themselves with a program “in name only”.  Common reasons given for demise of the program were that other priorities came up that took precedence or people just got tired of doing it.  There can be numerous reasons given for program failure but with a closer look can b

Patient falls in healthcare settings has long been a problem that despite many attempts to solve still continues to happen all too frequently.  The solution most hospitals and long term care facililities have implemented in recent years are bed and chair alarms.

“To Err is Human.”  That statement is known and appreciated by quality, production and safety managers.  That we all make mistakes is certainly nothing new.  Operational failures occur across all industries but the impact of errors can vary greatly between industries and companies.  The healthcare industry has perhaps the best known impact of errors.  Medical errors resulting in patient injury or death are quite costly.  The Institute of Medicine published are report back in 2000 (To Err is Human) that stated these errors cost the in

This is the fifth blog in the series on deer hunting and Lean, Ergonomics (Human Factors, Six Sigma and Systems Thinking (L.E.S.S.).

This is the fourth blog in the series on deer hunting and Lean, Ergonomics (Human Factors, Six Sigma and Systems Thinking (L.E.S.S.).

In my last blog I explained how a couple of Lean principles are used pre and post-hunt.  Well, those same principles can be used once the hunter arrives in the woods.  As a reminder, two of the primary principles Lean are to reduce waste and non-value added activities.  The goal of hunting is to spend as much time as possible hunting, i.e. in the stand/blind, and minimize the time spent on preparation.

Final pre-hunt preparation

This is the third blog in the series on deer hunting and Lean, Ergonomics (Human Factors, Six Sigma and Systems Thinking (L.E.S.S.).