Zoe Radnor - Böcker

How do policy makers and managers square the circle of increasing demand and expectations for the delivery and quality of services against a backdrop of reduced public funding from government and philanthropists? Leaders, executives and managers are increasingly focusing on service operations improvement. In terms of research, public services are immature within the discipline of operations management, and existing knowledge is limited to government departments and large bureaucratic institutions.Drawing on a range of theory and frameworks, this book develops the research agenda, and knowledge and understanding in public service operations management, addressing the most pressing dilemmas faced by leaders, executives and operations managers in the public services environment. It offers a new empirical analysis of the impact of contextual factors, including the migration of planning systems founded on MRP/ERP and the adoption of industrial based improvement practices such as TQM, lean thinking and Six Sigma.This will be of interest to researchers, educators and advanced students in public management, service operations management, health service management and public policy studies.

Lean is one of the most widely used improvement approaches in healthcare. With origins in manufacturing, it focuses on improving efficiency, eliminating waste, and streamlining processes. This Element provides an overview of the evidence for the use of Lean in healthcare, summarises the supporting tools and techniques, and emphasises the importance of developing an organisational culture committed to continuous improvement. The authors offer two case studies of attempts to implement Lean at scale, noting that, despite its popularity, implementation is not straightforward. Challenges include terminology that isn't always easy to grasp, perceived dissonances between the manufacturing origins of Lean based on repetitive, standardised, automated production and the human-centred world of healthcare, and problems with fidelity. The authors make the case that there is a lack of a robust evidence base for Lean and call for well-designed studies to advance the implementation of Lean and associated process improvement techniques in healthcare. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.