I also agree with your commenters point that there is some handmade that is very shoddy. I’ve done repair work in the past after “mistakes”, but have started a new policy that I don’t take this on anymore, as the mistakes can go very deep (wrong cuts) and corrections that cause more problems than they cure.

Great post.

If the stitchers can work from a variety of positins it will be much healthier on their backs, which I expect would boost matabolism and reduce injury leave.

I’ve never heard this before.

Intuitively, as the body evolved for walking, I would expect that walking would be healthier than sitting in a chair. If there’s non-anecdotal evidence to the contrary, I’d love to see it.

I do know that in the TSS pods I’ve seen, inserting sitting anywhere on the line would be a nightmare and would almost certainly increase the odds of injury rather than reduce it.

I heard about this story this morning, this horrible tragedy where a 35-year old woman, Darrie Eason (pictured), from New York was told she had cancer and had a double mastectomy done on her, only to find out she really didn’t have cancer. The lab had switched two patient specimens. So the woman who really had cancer didn’t find out right away. The results were read properly by the pathologists, but they were mixed up due to what amounts to an administrative error. The MSNBC article mentioned the practice of “batching” specimens:
“The state report said “the most likely source of the error” was the technician engaging in a practice called “batching,” which involves handling more than one specimen at a time.”

Now, if you’re a manufacturing person, you recognize the term “batching.” It happens all the time in factories. When you implement Lean, you try to reduce your batch sizes to help improve flow. Batching interferes with flow. Batching also harms quality, in a number of ways.

* The batch is moved and loaded into a “tissue processor.” Now this is inherently a batch process. Think of loading dishes into a dishwasher. Not a perfect analogy, but you don’t load one dish and hit “start.” Not if the dishwasher runs for 12 hours overnight.

Now let’s stop and think about this for a minute. We see the exact same mentality in manufacturing. If you have a factory process that is batch oriented, we tend to use that same mindset and batch everywhere. With Lean in a factory, we move toward flowing up to the batch process and flowing after the batch process — for quality purposes and other reasons. The same thing can be done in a lab.

* The tissue then goes through a few more operations. None of which is a batch process. It’s a lot of manual work. But, batching is still the primary mindset. We do a lot of work and let specimens accumulate in a tray until we move them, as a batch, to the next step.

A CBLPath technician who handled Eason’s test admitted to his supervisors that he “occasionally cut corners by batching,” or handling more than one tissue specimen at a time,

Unless the lab had implemented Lean methods, batching was the normal process. It’s not “cutting corners” if you are following the same normal process that everyone else is using. The normal process that sets people up to make errors. To a Lean thinker, the fact that you NEED inspection is a sign that your process is prone to errors.

The state also claimed:
“The state health department determined that CBLPath’s error was isolated and found “no systemic problems and no deficiencies” at the lab.”

Sigh. Let’s just blame the person. Problem solved. Go back to trusting your health system… It’s called “human error” for a reason – we are human and we make mistakes. Smart system design recognizes that and makes it harder for errors to occur.

Good idea, but only if your work force falls within a close range of body dimensions. I am quite short, and find a chair ergonomically set for someone 6-8″ taller worse than a backless stool.

A set of plastic steps (remember step exercising?) that can easily be kicked along from (tall-standing-height) machine to machine works much better, but only if the machine can be run from a knee press or movable foot control.

I once worked in a glass studio where the rest were guys 6′4″ to 6′6″. They considered the (dangerous) angles I had for the furnaces and glory hole to be my problem. I kicked along a concrete block.