Saturday, April 28, 2007

LeanBlog Podcast #23 - Group Health Cooperative

Episode #23 of the LeanBlog Podcast features a panel of Lean leaders from the Group Health Cooperative (www.ghc.org), a consumer-governed, nonprofit health care system that coordinates care and coverage. Based in Seattle, Group Health and its subsidiary health carriers, Group Health Options, Inc. and KPS Health Plans, serve over 500,000 members in Washington and Idaho. GHC has been on a Lean journey, as documented on their "Daily Kaizen" blog (www.dailykaizen.org). Joining us on the Podcast are three of their Lean Leaders:

* James Hereford, Executive Vice President, Strategic Services and Quality
* Dr. Ted Eyan, Medical Director of Health Informatics and Web Services
* Lee Fried, Manager of the Strategic Consulting team at Group Health

In this Podcast, they discuss how GHC got started with Lean, their early "point improvement" succeses, and their transition to a more systemic approach to a Lean management system through their "model line" efforts.

If you have feedback on the podcast, or any questions for me or my guests, you can email me at podcast@leanblog.org or you can call and leave a voicemail by calling the "Lean Line" at (817) 776-LEAN (817-776-5326) or contact me via Skype id "mgraban". Please give your location and your first name. Any comments (email or voicemail) might be used in follow ups to the podcast.

Click here for the main LeanBlog Podcast page (www.leanpodcast.org) with all previous episodes.


Wednesday, April 11, 2007

LeanBlog Podcast #22 - Allan Wilson, Factory Logic

Episode #22 of the Podcast is a discussion with Allan Wilson, CEO of Factory Logic, a software company that was acquired by SAP late last year. Allan is now the VP of Lean Manufacturing Operations for SAP. We talk about the role of technology and software in a Lean implementation. In the interest of full disclosure, I worked for Factory Logic a few years back, including time under Allan's leadership, but I have no financial interest in the company or products.

If you have feedback on the podcast, or any questions for me or my guests, you can email me at leanpodcast@gmail.com or you can call and leave a voicemail by calling the "Lean Line" at (817) 776-LEAN (817-776-5326) or contact me via Skype id "mgraban". Please give your location and your first name. Any comments (email or voicemail) might be used in follow ups to the podcast. Visit www.leanpodcast.org for all episodes.