Value flow structure and analysis to support Lean initiatives in surgical centers

Lean in hospitals can provide expressive results and benefits for several stakeholders. In these settings, Lean introduction in surgical centers could support improvements, such as staff and patient’s satisfaction increase and reduction of non-value adding time, such as late starts and waiting times for surgeries. To achieve this, Value Stream Mapping (VSM) can be seen as a robust Lean tool, which could support process mapping and identification of wastes and their sources and enable means to prioritize improvements in healthcare process flows. In this paper, a VSM structure for surgical centers is presented in three phases, aiming to identify existing processes and wastes, and suggest improvements based on Lean practices. To support the proposed tool, a literature review of similar approaches was conducted and a case study in a Brazilian hospital was developed, in order to map the surgical center’s processes and exemplify the proposed VSM. This case study also provided practical examples about the VSM introduction and analyzed aspects such as a value aggregation index for the process and the comparison of the proposed tool and other papers in the literature. Based on the proposed approach, it is expected that practical and theoretical studies could use a VSM approach to plan and execute improvement projects in surgical centers and hospitals

Comparison of the preferences of advanced and everyday users of technology products using Fuzzy-AHP

The use of knowledge derived from the interaction with customers has been a common practice in the development of innovative products. The literature has emphasized the insertion of users with advanced knowledge into the innovation process, since they have a clearer view of their own needs, as well as technological trends. A major challenge is the identification and extraction of information from such users, which would give rise to opportunities for incremental and breakthrough innovations. This paper proposes a method that uses the Fuzzy-AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and statistical tests to extract the opinions of advanced users and compare them with the perceptions of everyday users of technology products. The method assumes that the identification of differences between the perceptions of these two customer groups can be an important source of information on aspects of the product that need to be addressed by the innovation process. A practical application of the proposed method in the headphones sector is presented to show how its steps can be performed in a real study. The application led to insights about practical aspects of the method that may be addressed in future studies

Proposal of a method to identify and measure the relative importance of customer preferences based on fuzzy-AHP

The identification of needs and preferences of consumers is closely linked to the perceived quality of products. Therefore, product development methodologies such as QFD highlight the importance of identifying consumer requirements as a key to the success in developing new products. Despite this, little emphasis has been given as to how these initial steps should be enacted. Hence, this paper proposes a three-step method to assist both in the identification of consumer needs as well as in the measurement of the relative importance of product aspects considered relevant by potential consumers, using Fuzzy-AHP as the fulcrum of the method. A pilot application was conducted in the development of headphones to illustrate how the method should be used, which led to many practical insights concerning the applicability of the method and how the collected data should be analyzed and used for decision-making. In addition, Fuzzy-AHP was able to effectivelymeasure consumer preferences