Savings Beyond Price™
Innovative Supply Savings and Quality Solutions That Work
by Strategic Value Analysis® in Healthcare
Did You Know...?
That Value Analysis Was Developed Back In the 1940's After World War II as a Way to Find Lower Cost but Higher Quality Alternative products and methods. This was Due to the Lack of Material Resources At The End of The War.
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter - March 13, 2008
Robert T. Yokl
President & Chief Value Strategist
Greetings!
Connecting the Dots!
We have found that most hospitals don’t “connect the dots” (projects, savings, team members and outcomes) on their supply value analysis program. Consequently, they are never in control of their VA process.
This little known fact prohibits team leaders from knowing if their team members are actually working on their projects, really saving what they say they are saving or having interventions when projects are going south.
That’s why every hospital that has even one value team in play must have a dashboard to manage and control their value analysis process.
This would provide them with a visual communication tool to keep their executive management informed as to the progress of their value team’(s) performance.
This dashboard concept is so powerful that one of our clients, who employs our Supply Chain Pilot™ Dashboard to manage their supply expense initiatives, captures all of their hospital’s supply chain savings, even if it is outside of their VA program in one central database. Even their Chairman of the Board periodically checks the progress of their supply chain initiatives on line. I would say that you can’t get any higher level of management tuned in to your performance than this hospital is doing!
If you want to “connect the dots” with your own supply value analysis program and up your performance several notches a dashboard is the ticket to do so.
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™
Robert T. Yokl
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
P.S. I’ve heard that a number of students are very excited that they will be certified as a”Green Belt” after completing our “Integrating Supply Six Sigma™ into Material Management 2-Day Workshop” on May 6th and 7th. Yet, the time is quickly running out for you to sign up to receive our Early Bird Rate ($211 savings). Or, you will end up paying the full rate which doesn’t make much sense to me. Wouldn’t you agree?
4 Reasons VA Programs Lose Their Momentum
“All are within your control if spotted in time”
I haven’t seen a supply value analysis program yet that hasn’t lost its momentum over time if it didn’t continuously monitor and control its strategic, organizational, operational, and internal factors. Sadly, most of these critical factors that will stall your VA program are directly attributable, not to supply chain professionals efforts, but to your executive management’s lack of focus, persistence and vision in raising supply chain management to the highest level in their organization.
It’s easy for hospitals to put a value team(s) together and have successes over 1, 2 or even 3 years, but that’s not a precise test of longevity. A true test of longevity is if your supply value analysis program has been active, productive and profitable for more than 5, 7, 10 or even 15 years. That’s what I call an accurate test of longevity!
The 4 reasons that supply value analysis programs stall, lose their momentum or even die a slow but sure death is that supply chain professionals haven’t kept their eye on these critical factors:
1. Strategic: It’s been our experience that executive management teams are hot and cold when it comes to saving money depending on what their bottom line looks like at any given time. It’s our job therefore to make sure our management team clearly understands that cost is always our enemy and we must always be on the attack.
2. Organizational: Too often your executive management team will get tired, bored and even oblivious to all the work that your value teams must do to save money, and then start to pull resources from the value team(s). The first person to leave your team is usually your champion, who thinks that the team doesn’t need their help any longer. That’s when you must step up and fight to get your champion back on track or your team will suffer dire consequences from their absence.
3. Operational: Discipline is the glue that holds your teamwork together, just like an army going into battle. If you permit your team members to slack off, become complacent or start to miss deadlines this is a sign that you are losing control. You need to quickly reestablish your ground rules and regulations to get you teamwork moving again in a disciplined manner.
4. Internal/External: In some ways this could be considered the biggest reason in which we have seen VA teams lose their momentum. This would be when other initiatives take precedence over your VA program, e.g., joint commission inspection, new computer installation, operational excellence programs, etc. The end result is that it takes all or most of your VA team members in another direction. You can’t let this happen! Your VA program must continue -- maybe at a slower pace -- but it can’t be stopped cold for another initiative. Otherwise, you will find that to rev up your savings engine again will take many months -- even years to do so.
Your Value team(s) is the life blood of your hospital’s financial fitness! If your VA program loses momentum your hospital’s bottom line will shrink. I have the evidence-based data to prove it. Now it’s your job to monitor and control these four critical factors to make sure that it doesn’t happen at your hospital too.
Healthcare Lean Value AnalysisTM
March 19, 2008 - 1:00pm to 2:00pm EST
Energize and grow your value analysis programs while increasing your savings yields and dramatically improving your quality.
What You Will Learn:
Learn the difference between Lean Value Analysis and traditional value analysis and product evaluation techniques.
Learn the new skills that are required to be successful with Lean Value AnalysisTM in the years to come.
How to step up your quality processes inside your value analysis program while saving more in the long run.
How Lean and Six Sigma are perfect tools for the value analysis and supply chain practitioners to gain faster and better results.
How to develop your Lean Value Analysis ToolboxTM to pack more power into your value analysis teams and methods.
How to gain your managements' buy-in to the new Lean Value AnalysisTM concepts and practices to insure long term savings and quality improvement success.
March 19, 2008 - 1:00pm to 2:00pm EST
Webinar Leader - Robert T. Yokl, President/Chief Value Strategist Strategic Value Analysis in Healthcare
Sign Up Here click here
Remember...The Webinar May Be FREE But The Information is Priceless
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