ABSTRACT
People and their ideas for improvement are close to the heart of Lean production. People can also seem to be close enough to the neck to cause a pain there. Perhaps that is because of Lean leaders’ experience when they go to start the production day only to find one or more people have “called in” as unplanned absences. It is a big deal to be missing a person or two when the day’s labor plan has been matched to the rhythm of takt time, or the allotted time per workflow, or the expected number of patients or customers. Without just the right number of people, flow does not flow, pull can deteriorate into stock-outs, and the takt beat is uneven and sporadic.
