Value Analysis is all about SCAMPER
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – June 24, 2009
Robert T. Yokl
President & Chief Value Strategist
Value Analysis is all about SCAMPER
Greetings,
If you aren’t using the techniques of SCAMPER to boost your value analysis savings and improve your quality, then I have a big savings idea to share with you today. Here’s what I’m talking about!
Value analysis is all about “the search for lower cost alternatives to meet your desired functions (primary, secondary and aesthetic) reliably”. Whereas, SCAMPER is a proven technique to help you reach this goal. That’s because every new idea is just an addition or modification to something that already existed which SCAMPER helps you flush out.
So if you can modify, adjust, or alter a product, service or technology you are buying you will dramatically increase your odds of coming up with new and better ideas that can save your money or improve your quality.
Here’s a mnemonic developed by Bob Eberle to help you remember the SCAMPER concept when you are applying it to your value analysis studies:
Substitute something: Replacing a disposable with a reusable.
Combine it with something: Adding it to a kit, tray or pack.
Adapt something to it: Add fax chips to PCs to eliminate fax machines.
Modify or Magnify it: Reduce the size, volume or bulk of a item.
Put it to some other use: Use gloves for ice packs (it’s been done).
Eliminate something: Removing items from kit, tray or pack.
Reverse or Rearrange it: Don’t use custom packs at all (it’s been done).
Simply put, the SCAMPER mnemonic is all about searching out new and better alternatives to what you are doing and what you are buying now and will force you and your VA teams to change your thought patterns. This in turn will change your thinking about how you can save money or improve your quality. It will open up whole new vistas and pathways that will give you and your VA teams surprising insights and ideas on how to save money in every corner of your healthcare organization.
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
1-800-220-4274
P.S. If your value analysis team(s) is in a slump you may want to invest in our two-day on-site advance value analysis training program to move your value analysis teams and committees to the next level of savings performance.
What Happens When You Run Out of Price Savings?
Price savings are harder to find, contain, negotiate or even identify now that everyone (including your vendors) understands and has become highly skilled at how to play the price game. Wouldn’t you agree?
What happens when you run out of price savings, or as I like to say, “What happens when the fish stop jumping into your boat?” At a recent seminar that I conducted a MM’s answer to this question was “Look for a new job”. I don’t think that’s the right answer to this question — do you?
Reality check: Your vendors’ cost for transportation, energy, plastics, etc. (or 80% of the things your hospital buys) will continue to escalate. So who do you think your vendors are going to pass this cost along to?
Yes you got it right – YOU!
I was just talking to one of my major teaching hospital clients the other day who is scrambling to find more savings in their orthopedic and spine implants, but even after benchmarking his cost with us and bidding his implants using our benchmarks as a guide, he only shaved a few percent off his implant prices. By the way, this client belongs to two GPOs and still can’t get better prices even with his own custom contracts on implants
The next day I talked to another client of ours who is the Vice President of Purchasing for a six hospital system who is racking his brain on how to get better prices for his hospitals, when he never had this challenge before. Until recently, he always could find a new and better price savings on any commodity he was purchasing.
What does this all mean to you! If you are betting your career on finding new and better prices for the commodities you buy in the future you are going to be in for a rude awaking – it isn’t going to happen.
On the other hand, if you look beyond price you can make a quantum leap forward in utilization savings that are never ending and are right in front of your eyes just waiting to be harvested.
Five Myths Vs Facts
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – June 10, 2009
President & Chief Value Strategist
Five Myths vs. Facts!
Greetings,
Over time we all develop a belief system that is based on our life experiences, biases, and traditions but are these viewpoints myths or are they facts? These collective perspectives or assumptions that we gather over time can relate to our supply chain world as well as our life!
From a supply chain perspective if these beliefs and assumptions aren’t tested, inspected and examined vigorously we could be overlooking big breakthroughs in our supply chain management. Here are five myths versus facts that you should be reexamining in order for you to remove any performance gaps in your supply chain operations:
1. Benchmarking Doesn’t Work
I can’t count the times a MM has told me that they believe that benchmarking doesn’t work because it is inexact science or we are different. By holding this belief, these MMs are missing the opportunity to save millions of dollars annually.
To the contrary, benchmarking is an art and science that has been proven in every industry, including healthcare, to be the best methodology to identify gaps in an organization’s performance. This leads us to search out best practices to fill those gaps that are costing us thousands, maybe even millions of dollars annually.
2. Price Savings are Forever
I hope everyone understands that “nothing is forever”, but too many MMs believe that this truism doesn’t apply to price savings when the facts inform us differently. With few exceptions, hospitals, systems and IDNs are just holding the line on inflation (3.9% for 2008) with their price savings, not beating it. This fact would lead me to believe that MMs should be searching out other sources of savings if they want to beat the inflation rate each and every year.
3. Utilization Management isn’t a Priority
Considering that price savings are slowly disappearing, what better source of new savings (7% to 15%) could there be than utilization (in-use cost)? How then can MMs IGNORE these big savings opportunities by stating that it isn’t a priority? Shouldn’t the highest level of savings available at a healthcare organization, with the best ROIs, be an uppermost priority to every supply chain manager?
4. Value Analysis is all About GPO Contracts
Every time we visit with a value analysis team we find them evaluating their new GPO contracts, with very little emphasis on the waste and inefficiency in their supply chain.
Value analysis ISN’T about GPO contracts; it’s all about functional analysis, which has nothing to do with GPO contracts. When will we get these two disparate supply chain activities designations right?
5. Purchases Services isn’t in our Scope
I was just told again last week by a value analysis manager that he doesn’t believe that purchase services should be in the scope of his supply value analysis program. Then I asked him who did he think should be functionally analyzing these contracts?
The way I see it your department heads won’t, your supply chain department is too busy, and your administration doesn’t even have these multi-year million dollar purchases on their radar screen. That’s why purchase service contracts MUST, in my opinion, be in the scope of your supply chain department and evaluated by your value analysis teams. To do less is to relinquish hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings annually.
These five myths vs. the facts should raise your consciousness to the possibility that all commonly held beliefs and assumptions aren’t always factually true. That’s why you need to challenge not only your own beliefs and assumptions, but those held by others in your healthcare organization that might not pass the test of time.
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
1-800-220-4274
P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for this ONE-TIME-ONLY “How to Create, Manage and Maintain High Performance Value Analysis Teams” NO COST webinar on June 17th (Eastern) at 1:00pm (Eastern). This webinar is exclusively designed for those hospitals, systems and IDNs who are seriously looking for new and better strategies, tactics and techniques to take your supply value analysis program to the next level of savings performance.
How to Create, Manage and Maintain High Performance Value Analysis Teams
Healthcare Supply Chain Best Practices
How to Create, Manage and Maintain High
Performance Value Analysis Teams
Take Your Value Analysis Savings and Quality Improvement Program to a Whole New Level of Higher Performance and Quality Results
Webinar Objectives:
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Evolution of Supply Value Analysis Committees and Teams?
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Where They Came From
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Where They Are Going
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What Works
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What Doesn’t Work
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What Are the Results You Can Expect With A High Performing Value Analysis Team(s)?
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Teams Vs. Committees, Which Works Best?
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What Are the Key Components to a Successful Value Analysis Team?
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Structure
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Strategic Vision
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Management Backing
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Fueling the Savings Fire
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Team Dynamic
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Solid Leadership Model
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Repeatable System
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Strong Reporting
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How Do You Set Up a Win-Win Value Analysis Program/System?
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Convincing Senior Management that this is the Right Way to Go
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Creating A Value Analysis Strategic Plan
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Gaining Peer Participation and Buy-In
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Making it Happen!
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How Do You Manage Team Members with Competing Priorities?
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Lean Management
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TQM
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Six Sigma
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Service Excellence
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Managing Their Departments and Jobs
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Other Special Projects
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How Do You Break Through the Barriers that Hold Value Analysis Teams True Performance Back?
Thursday, June 17th – 1:00pm Eastern
All Registered Attendee’s Will Receive a Copy of the Webinar Slides and Audio Replay at No Cost to You!
PLUS...You Will Also Receive a Copy of SVAH’s Value Analysis Strategic Planning e-Workbook
Strategic Supply Chain Webinar Series Leader – Robert T. Yokl, President/Chief Value Strategist and Robert W. Yokl, VP of Operations, Strategic Value Analysis in Healthcare
Remember…The Webinar May Be FREE But The Information is Priceless
Are You Getting Serious About Value Analysis?
We are seeing a very positive emerging trend in healthcare today: hospitals, systems and IDNs are getting serious about value analysis. The question I have for you is “Are you getting serious about value analysis too!”
For years value analysis was something we told our bosses and colleagues we were doing to make them think we were on the cutting edge of supply chain management. We knew however in our heart of hearts that our team(s) or committee(s) weren’t generating the savings and quality improvements that they could or should be. We knew our team or committee members weren’t attending meetings, that we weren’t getting management support that we needed to be successful and that our department heads and managers too often placed barriers in our path that prevented us from making savings happen.
That was then, this is now! We are now seeing hospitals, systems and IDNs providing formal advanced training for their senior management and value analysis teams in the classic tenets of value analysis, organizing their teams to save and seeking out new power tools to manage, monitor and control their supply value analysis program. They are hiring professional trained value analysis coordinators, managers or directors to manage their supply value analysis program.
Why Now, not then? No hospital, system or IDN, with their dip in revenues due to the recession, can leave a significant 7% to 15% in utilization supply expense savings on the table untouched. In the past this 7% to 15% seemed nice to have, but now is critical to their survival. That’s where value analysis comes to the rescue!
Value analysis, if practiced patiently, fervently, artfully and scientifically is the vital savings engine that all healthcare organizations (large and small) need to make Savings Beyond Price™ quickly happen. But this budding success story won’t materialize unless your senior management, team(s) or committee(s) has the requisite tools, training and executive management support required to create, manage and maintain high performance value analysis teams.
So if your hospital, system or IDN is getting serious about value analysis just remember this important salient fact: value analysis isn’t about establishing a value analysis team or teams and then telling them to GO SAVE MONEY! It’s all about having highly trained, motivated and incentivized VA team leaders and team members that understand, internalize and vigorously apply the six-step value analysis methodology to uncover and then implement any and all savings opportunities for your healthcare organization.
Are You Really Different?
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – May 27, 2009
President & Chief Value Strategist
Are You Really Different?
Greetings,
When we discuss our benchmark findings with our clients they often say, “My hospital is different”. This is frequently their first reaction to savings opportunities we have uncovered for them with our UTILIZER™ Dashboard. The question they should be asking themselves is, “why are we different?
Here’s why! Hospitals of the same size, type and with similar operating characteristics should be utilizing, within an acceptable range, their individual products, services and technologies at the same velocity and intensity.
If you find that you are NOT within an acceptable range (plus or minus 3%) through benchmarking, then you need to seriously question why not. In some cases, you will find that you are indeed different and your benchmarks need to be reset to account for your legitimate differentiation. Here are three reasons in which hospitals are genuinely different:
1. Unique Conditions – One hospital we worked with was utilizing a huge quantity of disposable bath systems only to find that they didn’t have showers in their patient rooms. This physical constraint required this hospital to use more of this product since they had no alternative.
2. Management Fiat – A client’s corporate office mandated that their four hospitals standardize on hyper-allergenic gloves throughout their facilities. Naturally, they would have more dollars in this category of purchase than their peers.
3. Operating Culture – It was decided by another client of ours that they would employ Oxisensors on their patients using PCA Pumps for Pain Meds. to make doubly sure they were safe. This substantially increased the volume of Oxisensors this hospital was buying.
4. Tradition & Rituals – Another client of ours placed logos on many of their products (coffee/soda cups, patient water cups, carafes, etc.) that increased the cost on all of these commodities. This certainly made them different than most of our clients.
So as you can see, there are justifiable reasons why your hospital might be DIFFERENT in the way you utilize your products, services and technologies. However, these outliers are not be construed as common practices in our industry. That’s why you need to measure and observe why you are different, before you can make the case that your hospital is really different!
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
1-800-220-4274
P.S. Our clients find that our UTILIZER™ Dashboard is an easy way to indentify utilization misalignments, instead of just “skimming the surface” of their savings. Take a “test drive” today!
Make Savings A Team Effort!
Our research, surveys and empirical data tell us that too many supply chain professionals are trying to make all or most of the supply chain savings for their hospital, system or IDN themselves. While this is a commendable effort, it isn’t productive, prudent or cost effective in the long run.
A much better way is to share the workload with your value analysis team members. I will guarantee that by doing so, you will increase your savings output by 300%, 400% or even 500%. If you don’t have a value analysis team(s) now, then it is high time you establish one to lighten your workload, increase your throughput and boost your buy-in on your savings ideas.
It then becomes your job to facilitate, coach, train and consult with your VA team leaders and VA team members to ensure that your VA team is on track, on budget and on target to save big for your healthcare organization.
One of the secrets of personal productivity is DELEGATION: Assigning others your responsibility, but not your accountability to get things done! That’s what a VA team can do for you. It will provide you with many extra experienced hands that you will need to operate at peak performance. The alternative is to continue to be swamped, frazzled and overworked while getting little, if any, real, robust savings work done.
Why You Should NOT Lay Off Your VA Coordinator?
I have observed a troubling trend that is popping up all over the healthcare landscape. This trend in hospitals, systems and IDNs are laying off their value analysis coordinators, managers and directors because of the affects of the new economy. This doesn’t make any sense to me, but it is a reality!
In fact, I was shocked when I called one of our Certified Value Analysis Leaders only to find out that she was laid off from a major teaching hospital last month, who I considered one of the best in the field. How could this happen?
I have a theory; see if you agree with me. I believe that this Value Analysis Manager didn’t show the intrinsic VALUE of her position to her senior management every day, in every way, and when every opportunity came her way. Therefore, her senior management, when the chips were down, didn’t see the VALUE of her position, so they eliminated it.
Don’t make this same fatal mistake! If you are a value analysis coordinator, manager or director take a lesson from this story. You MUST make yourself highly visible to your healthcare organization’s senior management and make sure they recognize you as an essential, indispensible and important cog in your hospital’s supply chains wheel. This can be accomplished by these four visibility tactics:
1. Sending a monthly, quarterly and annual report to your senior management on your VA savings and activities.
2. Publish a monthly Value Analysis Newsletter and circulate it to all of your senior management, department heads and managers talking about your VA successes.
3. Make sure that there is a member of your hospital’s senior management team on ALL of your value analysis teams.
4. Facilitate an annual value analysis strategic planning retreat and invite your senior management team to participate in this important planning process.
I think you get the idea, it’s your job to show the intrinsic VALUE of your position and this won’t happen unless you start to promote yourself and your value analysis efforts shamelessly, if need be, to ensure that your important position is recognized as mission critical to the success of your healthcare organization. Don’t leave anything to chance!
Your Best Savings are Below the Waterline
Most healthcare organizations have attacked their cost (above the water line) with their GPO, capitation, standardization and custom contracts strategies, which is only yielding them 1%, 2% or 3% savings annually — at most. But did you know, as one of our clients astutely observed, “That it isn’t about price any longer (that is slowly disappearing), it’s about utilization”. Especially since the inflation rate this year could be as high as 3.4%. All of your savings gains are being washed away.
On the other hand, if you attack your utilization savings (below the water line) I can almost guarantee you that you can achieve 7% to 15% savings that aren’t affected by inflation. Value analysis is the key to doing so!
This is due to the fact that your hospital’s staff are generally so swamped that they don’t have time to stop and analyze whether this is the best use of this product, service or technology, is it being wasted or is there a lower cost alternative that could meet this function.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. At one hospital we worked with, the staff was using only a primary IV set. No secondary set had been purchased (yes, you heard right). The staff used these primary sets for every patient for a year without anyone questioning it, until we pointed it out, and this wasn’t a cheap oversight. The hospital spent close to a million dollars it didn’t need to spend until this utilization misalignment was resolved.
No that you know the facts, where do you think you should be focusing your savings efforts: Price or Utilization?
Have You Planted Your Seeds?
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – April 8, 2009
President & Chief Value Strategist
Have You Planted Your Seeds?
Greetings,
What do perennial flowers and recurring supply expense savings have in common? The simple answer is that both can grow and bloom for many years if you use the right tools, provide adequate nourishment, and the proper care and placement.
Why? We have found that healthcare organization must plant seeds today in order to generate new savings tomorrow, next quarter or even next year. Otherwise, your supply expense savings will be short-lived or worst yet, die on the vine before being harvested.
Think about it this way. Your price savings are getting harder and harder to achieve since you and your GPOs have squeezed your suppliers’ margins to the bone. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t BIG robust savings to be obtained by more effectively managing and controlling your healthcare organization’s products, services and technologies’ in-use cost or as we like to call them utilization misalignments.
In fact, our studies show that there is as much as 7% to 15% in NEW supply expense savings available to you right now. You can do this by attacking your wasteful and inefficient consumption, misuse and misapplication within the millions of dollars of products, services and technologies that you buy annually.
Case Study: One of our 223-bed community hospital clients was getting an excellent price and rebates on their contrast media, but then they found using our UTILIZER™ Dashboard that their contrast media in-use cost was $42,666 higher than their peers. When this utilization misalignment was investigated by one of their hospital’s value analysis project managers, they found that their radiology department had standardized on 155cc prefilled syringes to administer their contrast media. Their community standard was 100cc doses! After several negotiation sessions with their radiology director, he finally agreed to only use 155cc doses on his liver function patients; thereby immediately reducing his hospital’s contrast media cost by $41,298 annually. This was a win-win for all involved parties!
Question! “How would you know where your utilization misalignments are hidden at your healthcare organization without having a power tool to plant the seeds to grow and bloom your savings every month, every quarter, and every year?”
The typical healthcare organization has 7,000, 14,000 or even 30,000 SKUs (stockeeping units) they must track, manage and control continuously to ensure that their pricing and utilization is truly within acceptable limits. This is an almost impossible feat for super busy supply chain professionals to accomplish without leveraging technology to do this hard work for you.
A new era of supply chain expense management has arrived: Utilization Management. In fact, a new survey by Novation reported that 44% of healthcare organizations have decided to focus on utilization as their new path to savings for their hospital, systems and IDNs. This is the reality of the supply chain of the future, since price savings are slowly, but surely disappearing!
Isn’t it time that you jump on this fast moving utilization train so that you can reap the full benefits of new and better supply expense savings that are not only sustainable, but inflation proof?
at a time.
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
1-800-220-4274
P.S. If you want to know more about what utilization management is all about may I suggest that you download our Utilization Management Special Report. This is the future of supply chain expense management.
Benchmarking Still Drives Savings
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – April 1, 2009
President & Chief Value Strategist
Benchmarking Still Drives Savings
Greetings,
Industry embraced a simple idea in the 1980s. The idea was that it was possible to search for the best practices that will lead to superior performance by comparing cost, time or quality of one organization to another. This process is called benchmarking and it has been immensely successful in all industries — including healthcare — for almost three decades!
Here’s the rest of the story! One BIG gap that we have found in healthcare benchmarking practices is that this technique is not universally applied to the identification of supply expense savings opportunities. Yet, healthcare organizations that are benchmarking their supply expenses systematically have found that benchmarking is “what drives savings” for their hospital, system or IDN.
No longer do these progressive healthcare organizations need to guess where their supply savings are hidden, they now know precisely what to target for their next savings opportunity since their benchmarking has illuminated the way.
For instance, one of our clients, who is a subscriber to our Utilizer™ Dashboard, quickly discovered that their hospital wasn’t recycling their Oxisensors at the level that they should have been reprocessing, thereby losing $32,692 in savings annually.
How would this hospital have known this important fact if they weren’t continuously benchmarking to improve their performance? The answer is they wouldn’t have known unless they had stumbled over this anomaly in their supply chain by happenstance. Then it would be too late to recoup their big losses!
If you want to be on top of your supply chain game, benchmarking your supply expenses shouldn’t be ignored or be a “one time event”. It should be a regular (we recommend quarterly), systematic measuring of your healthcare organizations’ supply chain expenses against those who are recognized as best-in-class practitioners in healthcare or even in other industries. In this way you can make certain that you are the best of the best in ALL of your categories of purchase.
at a time.
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
1-800-220-4274
P.S. If you want to know more about benchmarking best practices I would recommend that you sign up for our Healthcare Supply Value Analysis webinar on April 16th.
New Software Opens up a Whole New World of Supply Chain Savings Previously Thought Impossible
For Immediate Release – Contact: Robert T. Yokl @ 800-220-4274
New Software Opens up a Whole New World of Supply Chain Savings Previously Thought Impossible
Utilizer™ Dashboard version 3.2 just released! Finally, there is a user friendly software that will enable healthcare organizations to quickly identify their supply utilization misalignments from the 30,000 foot level, right down to the ground level. This simple, effective and affordable Utilizer™ Dashboard will open up a whole new world of supply chain savings most think is impossible.
Skippack, Pa (SVAH) November 14, 2008 – Healthcare managers won’t be at all surprised to hear that the healthcare industry is rife with utilization misspends and misalignments. The root of the problem, according to expert research, is that despite their best efforts, healthcare managers have yet to uncover where their true utilization savings are buried.
Robert T. Yokl, President of Strategic Value Analysis® in Healthcare (SVAH) and a recognized supply chain management expert, recalls talking recently to a healthcare supply chain manager, who told Yokl that he, employing a spend manager, an analytics manager and clinical manager tools, was unable to locate their organization’s utilization misalignments. The job was not impossible, though, as SVAH’s was able to find nearly $4.2 million dollars in utilization misalignments for this organization.
“This very skilled and highly qualified supply chain manager was unable to pinpoint his savings opportunities, but this failure was in no way related to the managers’ skills or qualifications,” Yokl says. “He simply did not have the right tool to accurately find the savings that consistently remain buried in his supply chain data.”
Yokl’s solution is simple: Use the right tools for the job. Over the last eight years, SVAH has conducted hundreds of utilization benchmarking studies for hospitals, systems and IDNs by employing a proprietary utilization dashboard, which has identified close to a half a billion dollars in utilization misalignments for SVAH clients. Yokl says his company’s Utilizer™ Dashboard is the precision tool that hospitals and healthcare institutions really need. “The bottom line is that healthcare organizations can’t do it alone; it’s an impossible task to ask supply chain managers to find thousands, and even millions in supply chain savings using old-school strategies, tools and techniques.”
With this said, SVAH has just recently upgraded its Utilizer™ Dashboard to version 3.2 which now includes an easy to use contract management module that takes the hassle out of managing and controlling the hundreds (maybe even thousands) of contracts healthcare organizations must manage, archive and bid/negotiate almost on a daily basis.
The Utilizer™ Dashboard is available as a subscription service on a fixed monthly fee basis. It identifies all potential utilization savings, and subscribers also receive unlimited phone and e-mail coaching to assist them in translating, strategizing and implementing the savings uncovered with their Utilizer™ Dashboard. Yokl says one of the best features of the dashboard is that “SVAH does all of the heavy lifting and our clients get all of the savings.”
About The Company: Strategic Value Analysis ® in Healthcare, (SVAH) Skippack, Pennsylvania, is a software, training and consulting firm specializing in supply utilization management. SVAH’s mission is to give clients greater control over their supply chain by providing them with better information, better focus, and better systems so that they can make better decisions on their second biggest expenditure.
What Really Works!
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – November 13, 2008
President & Chief Value Strategist
Greetings!
What Really Works!
If you separate the facts from the fads in healthcare supply chain management you will quickly discover the “must-have” supply chain practices that truly produce superior results. What does really work, you might be surprised to hear, is that you need to go back to basics before you can go forward to big savings results in the future.
From my experience, here are the four primary supply chain best practices that really work and have past the test of time:
1. Committed Volume Purchasing
I can’t think of a healthcare organization that doesn’t belong to one, two or even three GPOs, but very few hospitals that I have observed have jumped on their GPOs committed volume contracts. That’s where the deep deep savings can be achieved for your healthcare organization, because all vendors sharpen their pencils when they know that they will get all of your business, not just some of it. That’s why regional GPOs are becoming a big factor in saving money for their members; they are all steadfastly focused on committed volume purchasing.
2. Classic Value Analysis Techniques
Value analysis in all its flavors, as a MM characterized it to me the other day, can save you money. However, if you were to employ the classic (back-to-basics) tenets of value analysis as espoused by Larry Miles, the Father of value analysis, you will save a lot more money and have better and faster results.
3. LEAN Management Practices
LEAN management has a 28-year history of leaning supply chains of waste and inefficiencies in all industries, including healthcare, by making use of Toyota’s 14 principles of management. LEAN is not only a best proven practice, but a “must-have” approach to supply chain management that will eliminate the huge costs of your hidden waste. The healthcare organizations that we have worked with over the years that religiously applied Toyota’s 14 principles have saved seven to 15% on supply chain expenses – almost overnight.
4. Supply Utilization Management
In the 80s Bill McFaul, the co-founder of McFaul and Lyons consulting firm, coined the phase “consumption management” to focus his clients on savings beyond price™ where the greatest savings can be achieved. We now call this discipline Supply Utilization Management because this art and science encompasses more than just consumption analysis of the products, services and technology you buy, but also targets the value mismatches in supply chains that are bloating hospital’s budgets. This is an old concept whose time has arrived again to be put into practice, since your price savings are slowly on the decline and your low hanging fruit have been picked.
You might want to consider these four best practices as “what’s old is new again” since the right strategies, tactics and techniques never really grow old, but somehow just get lost in the passage of time as we move on to new but not necessarily better best practices. I hope you will revisit these four primary supply chain best practices to produce even more superior results in the future for your healthcare organization.
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
800-220-4274
P..S. If you want to read more about “what’s old is new again” ideas you might want to check my special report “Building a Savings Factory” that will give you even more best practices that have passed the test of time.
P.P.S. Don’t forget to check out my new blog article “Supply Chain Hall of Fame Awards Now a Reality”. This blog will talk about nine men that changed the face of supply chain management in our time.
Supporting Multiple Projects Doesn’t Need to Give You a Big Fat Headache
As a supply chain professional you have multiple projects with different agendas, priorities, challenges and expectations that are ALL competing simultaneously for your attention and your time. How do you get all this varied and demanding work done effectively, efficiently and on a timely basis without getting a big fact headache? The answer is four fold:
Negotiate to give yourself more time, specifics and leeway
One of my former employees had mastered this technique to get more time, specifics and leeway to do the projects that I assigned him. Whenever I gave him a lengthy or complex task he would ask me which project that he was already working on for me should he re-order to get this new one done (he would then show me his to-do list to get my attention). Next, he would talk about the specifics of the project and then negotiate with me to whittle it down to a reasonable size. Finally, he would ask how I felt about doing the project differently so he could get it done easier and even faster than I had proposed. I always marveled at how this employee managed me on each project I assigned to him, but the results where always equal or better than I thought possible. You can use these same artful and powerful tactics to manage your bosses and your department heads and managers too.
Learn how to say “no” to projects that should go elsewhere
This is hard to do, but not impossible if you look at what is being asked of you by your bosses. Let’s say that you are asked by one of your bosses (if you think about it, we all really have more than one boss) to perform a telecommunications study to determine if there are savings opportunities for your hospital.
The question you should ask your boss, before saying yes to this project is “wouldn’t it be better if our in-house telecommunication expert Joe Smith performed this study since he knows more about this subject than me”. The chance that your boss would say yes to this proposal is very good and then you just got off the hook for this project without really saying no to your boss.
Increase your bosses’ awareness of the challenges you face
Too often we don’t keep our bosses’ informed about our workload, people problems and things that are happening in our hospital that are making our jobs more difficult. So our bosses’ think we always have the time and resources to do just one more project that he or she has just thought up with another important and unreasonable deadline.
Fatal flaw! If we keep our challenges to ourselves then our bosses won’t be aware of the problems we are encountering in getting our jobs done and they will continue to pile on the work at unrelenting speed. To prevent this from occurring, you need to meet with your boss (weekly if possible) to have an ongoing dialog about what’s happening in your department. Then he or she can be more sensitive when they assign you a new project and/or protect you from when other bosses ask you to do something that will be difficult for you to get done on time.
Delegate anything and everything that someone else can do
I know that every time management book will tell you to delegate, delegate, delegate to manage your time and workload. However, from my experience, very few supply chain managers really take this advice and run with it.
Why? They don’t want to lose control over the task or project, so they do it themselves since they think they can do it better than anyone else. Hence they never have enough time or energy to get everything done that is requested of them. Isn’t it about time we really rethink what we are doing about delegation, so that we can get even more done in less time?
Supporting multiple tasks and projects and getting them done in a timely fashion is every supply chain manager’s challenge, not just your problem. The good news is that there are strategies, tactics and techniques to ease your burden and lighten your workload if and when you decide to stop getting headaches over too much work and start managing your workload with new ways to do things.
Changing the Game!
President & Chief Value Strategist
Greetings!
Changing the Game!
What I’m hearing from supply chain professionals is that they are receiving more price increases from their GPOs than price savings offers. I see this as an historic milestone that is “changing the game” of supply chain management – forevermore!
If you think your GPO will continue to pull rabbits out of a hat (in this price is always going up economy) to give you never ending supply expense savings, then you are in for a rude awakening. Even Wal-Mart, Costco and BJ’s Wholesale Club are finding it next to impossible to hold back their vendor’s price increases. So why should healthcare be any different?
The good news is that there are literally billions of dollars of Savings Beyond Price™ in our own back yard in the form of utilization misalignments that have yet to be uncovered in the healthcare marketplace. This situation is analogous to the energy debate we American’s are having now on how much energy resources are available domestically. We are told by experts that these resources (oil, gas, wind, solar, etc.) are almost limitless if we start to explore for them now.
It’s the same with our own healthcare marketplace, we need to start today (not tomorrow or next week) to drill down into our own supply chains to find this hidden “black gold” in our own hospital, system or IDN, because the well is running dry on our price savings.
To sit on the sidelines and hope for the well to fill up again can be dangerous to your healthcare organization’s financial health.
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Bob Yokl
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
800-220-4274
P.S. More and more hospitals, systems and IDNs are jumping on the Utilizer™ Dashboard bandwagon to uncover their utilization misalignments before their price savings run out altogether. Wouldn’t you like to be one of them?
P.P.S. Don’t forget to check out my new blog article “Teach, Teach, Teach for Even More Supply Chain Savings” This blog is all about how you can do it the Costco way for million dollar paydays.
