After over 30 years in manufacturing, and the last six living in a lean manufacturing operation, it has been great to come on board Mercy Ships and bring that perspective to my job here. More recently, there have been recommendations made to move towards a LEAN system in terms of hospital supplies.
Since I have lived this, it was great to be able to share from experience and take some steps to improve the daily operation.
Those who understand 5S, know that everything has a place and every place is labeled. I've done a lot of labeling and organizing. Updating our standard work checklists (which did not even exist earlier this year) has helped keep up my excel skills as well as improve the day to day work. The improvements have cut in half the amount of time required for the daily tasks of taking inventory and supplying the hospital wards, operating rooms and other service areas. That gives us time to make more improvement and take on special improvement projects. There's still a lot to do, but it's nice to be able to use my training and experience to support improvements here.
I also had opportunity to apply my chemical background to a specific task which prevented some mishandling of chemicals. Most people don't know what an MSDS is here, or how to find one on the internet, but that's pretty routine for me. Reading the ingredients on a disinfectant raised some quick concerns about handling it. (Chemistry is a wonder thing).
Theses are just a couple small examples illustrating that God does not waste any of our experiences so that we can be ready to serve Him and others in the future. It is amazing how the skills learned in manufacturing can be applied to a lot of areas of life.
Chuck
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