LEAN & MEAN

Confronted by a large number of health care providers and institutions, the consortium used lean techniques to reduce personnel system and pay system function processes from 30 days to five days in 2006, Anderson says. Sealaska has also used lean techniques extensively at two subsidiaries that specialize in custom parts and prototypes, Olympic Fabrication and Synergy Systems, says Sam Landol, Sealaska chief operating officer, who was earlier a vice president and board member at Nipro and helped to implement lean processes there. Jackson, the lean operations management consultant at Seattle-based Rona Consulting Group who led Kaizen events at both Chugachmiut and Sealaska, says that it is not ethnic particularities that distinguish lean technique implementations at Native organizations from those at mainstream organizations, but rather the close-knit and personal natures of Native organizations.