Utilizing Lean Thinking as a Means to Digital Transformation in Service Organizations

Part 6: The Future of Lean Thinking and PracticeInternational audienceDigital transformation (DT) is gaining interest and changing citizens’ expectations of service organizations’ ability to deliver high-value, real-time digital services. However, from an organizational perspective, DT entails a continuum of transitions that emphasize cultural, organizational, processual and relational changes. Over the past few decades, Lean thinking has been a dominant part of many organizational philosophies and proven to be an important enabler, to cater for the aforementioned changes. With its focus on reducing organizational complexity and increasing value for the end-user, it can support DT through its systematized utilization of methods and tools for improvement. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the use of Lean thinking to develop and enhance service processes and its contributing effect to enable DT in service organizations. Accordingly, a conceptual process for Lean digital transformation (LDT) is developed and discussed. In order to test the developed LDT process, action research was conducted in a sales and service organization in Norway, where an after-sales process was selected for current-state analysis. The conducted study resulted in the development and commercialization of a software system, which has been licensed and implemented by approximately 100 users within a year. The findings of this study reveal a great improvement and innovation potential in utilizing Lean thinking to enable and drive DT

Direct Quantification of Campylobacter jejuni in Chicken Fecal Samples Using Real-Time PCR: Evaluation of Six Rapid DNA Extraction Methods

Direct and accurate quantification of Campylobacter in poultry is crucial for the assessment of public health risks and the evaluation of the effectiveness of control measures against Campylobacter in poultry. The aim of this study was to assess several rapid DNA extraction methods for their effectiveness for the direct quantification (without enrichment) of Campylobacter jejuni in chicken fecal samples using real-time PCR. The presence of inhibitory substances in chicken fecal samples may reduce or even completely impede the PCR amplification process making quantification very difficult. Six rapid DNA extraction methods were compared based on their limit of detection, efficiency, reproducibility, and precision. Standard curves were designed for all the methods tested in order to assess their performance on the direct quantification of C. jejuni in chicken fecal samples. As a result of this study, the Easy-DNA (Invitrogen) method generated lower Ct values, the best amplification efficiency (AE = 93.2 %) and good precision (R squared = 0.996). The method NucleoSpin® Tissue was able to detect samples spiked with the lowest Campylobacter concentration level (10 CFU/ml) but the amplification efficiency was not optimal (AE = 139.5 %). DNA extraction methods Easy-DNA Invitrogen, MiniMAG® and NucleoSpin® Tissue produced good real-time PCR reproducibility generating standard deviations from 0.3 to 0.8 between replicates