LEAN HEALTHCARE: AN APPLICATION OF TPM WITHIN NEPHROLOGY COMPANIES IN BRAZIL

Resumo

The purpose of this paper is to present findings of how Lean Manufacturing was applied in Nephrology companies and its results. This research has an exploratory and descriptive character, a case study grounded by a literature review. The implementation of Lean Manufacturing in Brazilian Nephrology companies was conducted by content analysis of annual reports over two times periods, giving a detailed analysis of Lean’s status in Brazilian healthcare. The study applies different Lean tools implementation in nephrology companies, at the operational level. These approaches were implemented considering the patient as the final customer. The findings suggest that isolated implementations can be very useful to a company that is not acquainted with continuous improvement philosophy. The data analysis demonstrates how much an isolated lean manufacturing tool could be considerable. Data were collected using a SAP system, which contents all service requests by each company, according to the defect found in the hemodialysis system. This research is the first to demonstrate how Lean Manufacturing tools were implemented, and what were the results generated by these applications, also is the first Brazilian implementation in Nephrology companies.