You've heard the old saying ‘how do you eat an elephant? - a BIT at a time!' Well the saying is equally true of implementing Lean into big organisations with complex pathways and issues. There are many ways to improve current levels of performance but the best by far is to utilise the untapped creative force in your workforce.

The Business Improvement Techniques (BIT) NVQ level 2 is a fantastic route into Lean for your workforce. The NVQ is geared for the manufacturing sector but our colleagues at Airdale NHS Trust (ANHST) have pioneered a route into healthcare.

This week Phil Davidson, Virtual College BIT Assessor, and I have been facilitating the second ANHST cohort through a week long implementation and learning of business improvement techniques.

Day 1

Tuesday was spent examining the passive modules. Admittedly, Health & Safety can be a dry subject but it is an essential part of the overall qualification. Fortunately, the Kaizen and Team Working modules are more stimulating so were good topics to start good discussions and debate.

Day 2

Wednesday started the first of the active modules. 6S, or workplace organisation, is an excellent starting point for Lean and the BIT candidates demonstrated that they understood the learning through the first half of the day. The second part of the day involved an actual 6S activity that required the team to call upon effective team working and project management to organise the activity. I must say that I was very pleased at how the team organised themselves. A key component of any Lean activity is communication and it was pleasing to see that the team were communicating well with the department Sister and staff.

Day 3

Thursday introduced the concept of Visual management and raised the most discussions from the week. It was great to see how many of the concepts were picked up quickly and potential benefits easily understood. I imagine that ANHST is similar to most hospitals around the country in that there is a tremendous opportunity to implement simple and yet effective visual management controls.

6S and Visual Management are intertwined. The team worked extremely well at maximising the benefits that both techniques offered. With very little prompting from either Phil or me they swiftly created a 6S Board. It was fantastic to see that the team remained focussed on the needs of the Customer and successfully endeavoured to make the 6S Board as user friendly as possible. Remember Lean isn't about doing Lean to people rather it is about doing Lean with people.

Day 4

On our final day together we delved into Flow Process (you might know it as Process Flow mapping). The best way to think about Process Flow is to imagine your current state like driving down a road blindfolded oblivious to all the inherent dangers! What Process Flow enables you to do is SEE the process and the cliff's edge before you fall off it. By being able to see process complexity or waste you can start to effectively manage and improve it.

I think that it would be fair to say that we all really enjoyed the BIT week. At the start of the week the team knew little about Lean but by the end they were demonstrating that they were all capable to effectively support the implementation of Lean within their own areas. There's another old saying ‘two heads are better than one' and this certainly is true for Lean implementation. By the end of their training the BIT Champions will add to the growing numbers of Lean practitioners at ANHST.

Enrolment onto the qualification was on an entirely voluntary basis and you didn't need to have years of experience implementing Lean. What you did need to have was a can-do attitude, willingness to try new things, lots of commitment and courage and determination to see things through to the end. Having spent a week with the second cohort of BIT Champions I can honestly say that this team have all of the above and more.

BIT Structure - A Very Quick Overview

The BIT NVQ comprises of 3 passive modules Health and Safety, Team Working, Kaizen and 3 active modules 6S, Flow Process Analysis and Visual Management.