ABSTRACT
No margin-no mission-is perhaps the most accepted truth of healthcare. Competing in reliability can be the difference between financial failure and a healthcare system having the profits, growth, and provider and patient loyalty to scale its methods across the globe. Ford achieved a reliable automobile design and manufacturing process that the world benefitted from and Toyota emulated and improved upon. As James Womack shared in his book The Machine That Changed the World (1990), Toyota took Ford’s highly reliable design and manufacturing process and became the manufacturer of some of the most reliable automobiles in the world. And, according to Womack, this reliability provided the ability of Leaning out processes across the business resulting in the most-profitable high-volume car manufacturer in the world.
