Optimization of Pharmacy Inventory Management by Applying LEAN Thinking in Nan Hospital

Abstract

Objective: To study the application of Lean thinking in pharmacy inventory management and evaluate its effects on inventory management. Methods: Phase 1 was a qualitative research conducted by brainstorming ideas from workers in pharmacy inventory. Subsequently, the study employed the fishbone chart to identify the problems on drug inventory management, drawn the process flow chart, Identified value in the work, waste and time spent on each sub-activity. Then the ECRS (eliminate, combine, rearrange, simplify) principle was used to eliminate the waste of work. Phase 2 was a quasi-experimental study that collected 30 data points before (March to May 2020) and after (October to December 2020) applying the Lean thinking. Results: Identified problems included personnel problems (new staff lacking experience and lack of understanding of drug inventory management), problems on equipment (drug carts and information technology systems being user-unfriendly), product problems (amount of medication inconsistent with the need), problems on work process (redundancy) and problems on environment (insufficient storage space). When the ECRS principle was applied, it was found that the number of remained sub-activities was 20 (48.72% reduction), of which 11 activities were operation (31.25% reduction), 6 for travel (14.29% reduction), one for waiting (88.89% decrease), two for verification (66.67% decrease) and one for storage (unchanged). For the value of work, it was found that there were 17 valuable activities (30.77% increase), one non-value added activity (95.65% decrease), and 2 necessary but non-value added activities (33.33% decrease). The ratio of total working time to total lead time was 95.64% (67.19% increase). Time for value-added activity time was 83.96% (63.79% increase). Waste remained in two activities (reduced by 95.56%). Total lead time was 96.92±5.20 min (reduced by 424.90±16.98 min) Total working time was 92.70±5.20 min i.e., significantly reduced by 55.75±5.77 min (P<0.001). Conclusion: The application of Lean thinking increased the efficiency of pharmacy inventory management by eliminating waste, increasing value- added activities, eliminating non-value-added activities and reducing working time.