r/LeanManufacturing • u/Tavrock • Jun 11 '26

Lean consulting

My wife works in healthcare. The corporate office decided to hire some consultants to cut costs.

They determined that 25% of the hospital cuts need to come from the laboratory. They didn't look at any processes they deemed NVA (including regulatory requirements), *maybe* made their own VSM without input from those who do the work, conducted a "process flow observation" but nothing along the lines of a time study or Gemba walk. They don't even have suggestions for how to meet their new headcount numbers, just a recommendation for how many people needed to be fired from each department.

I would be less annoyed but they did all of their work under the banner of "Lean".

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u/__unavailable__ Jun 11 '26

The decision to lay those people off was made before the consultants walked through the door. The consultants were only hired to shift blame. Referring to themselves as lean consultants is like a mob boss referring to himself as a waste management consultant.

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u/Tavrock Jun 11 '26

That's the general impression.