Hello!

It’s Saturday night in Japan and we’re in Tokyo, looking back on a very intense week of training, hands-on practice and reflection on the tools of the Toyota Production System.

Yesterday our three teams presented the results of our improvement workshops at the Yamatake meter plant to our sensei, the company’s CEO, and some of its work unit managers. They told us that they were extremely impressed by the hard work, professionalism and insight demonstrated by each of our teams. They benefited from an outside look (and very cool new equipment mock-ups) at their own operation, and we reinforced and added to our CPI skills.

This morning, after a 5:30 a.m. visit to the enormous and unbelievably bustling Tokyo fish market, our nine-member group from Seattle Children’s gathered to summarize and discuss the key learnings from the trip, to identify the implications for our own hospital operations, and to talk about the next steps for our integrated design process.

We grouped our observations into three important categories: leadership characteristics, CPI tools, and process planning guidelines. These were translated into the beginnings of a high-level plan for the process that we’ll use to design our Phase I hospital expansion. When we get back to Seattle, we’ll engage others to help us complete the data gathering and standard work for our first integrated design workshop, which will take place in February 2009. At least three other related events will be spread throughout the year.

In Japan, we’ve worked side-by-side with people from at least seven counties and have, at times, been challenged by the cultural differences represented in the workshop. We’ve noted how much the experience was strengthened by being away from what we know well, but have also observed how much of our CPI knowledge transcends borders and industries. We also can’t help but see how our host country, a densely-populated, natural-resource scarce, highly-industrialized island nation, functions so well using anthropological standard work, visual cues, and shared goals. We can’t wait to get home and continue planning a facility that will enable Seattle Children’s to advance its vision to be the best children’s hospital anywhere.

—Todd Johnson
Vice President, Facilities