LEAN PRACTICES IMPLEMENTATION PROJECT IN HEALTHCARE SUPPLY CHAIN: INHERENT PROCESSES IMPROVEMENTS

Healthcare organizations face constant management challenges. The high complexity and dynamicity of this sector, as well as the constant pressure to reduce costs while improving services, make the management process even more difficult. Taking into account that supply chain usually presents great opportunities for improvement within healthcare systems, both in term of costs reduction and quality of care increase, healthcare organizations have been adapting and implementing practices and principles of Lean Production (LP) in this context. Among the practices utilized in LP, value stream mapping (VSM) is one of the most adopted, as it identifies wastes and direct the application of other LP practices. In this sense, this work aims to comprehend the inherent processes of healthcare supply chain and identify lean practices implementation opportunities. To achieve that, a VSM was applied in a product family of a Brazilian school-hospital supply chain. Among the improvements observed, it is worth mentioning the reduction of 47% in processing time, a reduction of 13% in lead time and improvements in visual management and inventory management. Moreover, the contribution of this article is twofold. First, it establishes a method to identify the opportunities for lean implementation in healthcare supply chain, systematizing the process of continuous improvement. Second, it provides means for healthcare managers structure their supply chain lean implementation projects.