Advisory Council studies savings with Six Sigma expert.

The MedLab Advisory Council studied the savings its members can realize in applying Six Sigma techniques in its most recent meeting.

The Council is a peer group that holds events specially tailored to the unique real estate and operational needs of medical and wet chemical laboratories, and is chaired by Marisa Manley, president of Commercial Tenant Real Estate Representation (CTRR).

As a commercial real estate broker, Manley has negotiated numerous transactions with medical and other laboratory space users nationwide.

Council members include executives from CBLPath, IntegraMed, ATMI and ACMI.

Robert Brooks of Value Innovation Partners, a noted Six Sigma expert, addressed the group's February 26 meeting, "Reducing Waste and Maximizing Efficiency Using Lean Six Sigma." The session was hosted at the ACMI laboratory in Stamford, CT and included a tour of ACMI's state-of-the-art facilities.

Lean Six Sigma combines the practices of Lean production techniques and Six Sigma quality control. Separately, Lean production enhances efficiency of production and Six Sigma improves production quality. Together, they improve product and process quality, production efficiency, and profitability.

"Lean Six Sigma is especially useful for the unique needs of medical laboratories," says Manley. "This event is another example of the valuable knowledge and connections that participants in the MedLab Advisory Council can obtain."

Six Sigma was pioneered by Bill Smith at Motorola in 1986. Originally, it was defined as a metric for measuring defects and improving quality. Motorola has reported over $17 billion savings from Six Sigma to date. GE became one of the early adopters of Six Sigma and reported benefits of over $300 million during its first year of application. Other major organizations have benefited from Six Sigma including Ford, Caterpillar, Microsoft, Quest Diagnostics, 3M, and Merrill Lynch among many others.