Client Experiences on Direct Engagements

P.J. Kabel Ph.D. M.D.

Clinical microbiologist, Laboratory for Immunology and Microbiology, Tilburg, The Netherlands

"In 2007 Paul did a week long consultancy in our laboratory. He ignited the Lean fire in our laboratory. Because he was very open, we had a very intense learning experience, which had its effects until today. He changed our batch thinking into flow orientation. He was a true sensei for us, not only for the tools, but also for Lean thinking. Without the week with Paul, our laboratory would not be changed in an adaptive, learning organisation."

Marcus Masur MBA

Commercial Manager, DRK-Blutspendedienst Baden-Württemberg - Hessen gemeinnützige GmbH, Heidelberg, Germany

Email: M.Masur@blutspende.de

"I have known Paul Button in a professional capacity for over five years. I have previously employed his services as a Process Excellence Consultant in the IKTZ Heidelberg Blood Donation and Grouping Laboratory which is affiliated to the German Red Cross. Paul has the ability to facilitate a cross-functional team with various agendas and bring them together in unity and with an agreed common objective. This is quite a unique and remarkable skill. What he says he does, his words are true and he delivers on all of his commitments. He is a very strong leader and has the particular ability to take people along the journey which he seems to instinctively know they need to go on.

Paul is extremely focused, an excellent facilitator, and never loses the aim of the customer mission. He is 100% trustworthy. I have no hesitation in recommending the services of Paul and his company."

Heinz Juergen (Pablo) Roth

General Manager Heidelberg, MVZ Dr. Limbach & Colleagues, Germany

Email: Roth@Labor-limbach.de

"Paul has previously partnered with MVZ Dr. Limbach & Collegues as well as the Limbach Group SE in Germany. He became more than a business partner to me; I can say he quickly became a trusted friend. He is completely open minded and honest as well as straightforward and has a great sense of humor. He is very experienced in his field of expertise; process excellence. He has an analytical approach and always presents the problem in a manner which is easy to understand which I found very helpful. Paul has a great ability to empathize with the people in an organization. I have observed him dealing with extremely difficult situations where he managed to keep his composure and remain focused on the key issues. His presentations are always clearly structured and informative and the key messages are transferred in a humorous and constructive way."

Michael Crowe

Senior Vice President, Supply Chain, Caris Life Sciences, Inc.

Email: Roth@Labor-limbach.de

"I first worked with Paul a number of years ago in the diagnostics industry with Johnson & Johnson. He was an early and passionate adopter of Lean Sigma principles for the laboratory, applying and learning these skills through a lean transformation of his QA lab. From that non-traditional application of lean, he expanded his skills and capability with assignments running manufacturing, leading the start-up of a new medical device facility, and then by pursuing this passion as a principal consultant with J&J’s ValuMetrix organization. Throughout his career, he has gained many cycles of learning and demonstrated that he can apply Lean Sigma techniques to any process or transaction. His enthusiasm and leadership make him a great fit at all levels in an organization. He brings deep healthcare experience and cross-functional perspective to his consulting practice."

Univ.-Prof. Dr. med. Michael Neumaier

University Medicine Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Chair for Clinical Chemistry, Director Institute for Clinical Chemistry, Mannheim, Germany

Email: michaelneumaier@mac.com

"I have had the chance to meet Paul Button several times during the last years, when he was with ValuMetrix, a division of Johnson & Johnson, initiating pre-analytics projects and giving advice for the improvement and reorganization of workflows in clinical laboratory services. Paul held several seminars at the University Hospital Mannheim in Germany, where he outlined highly structured strategies for reorganization to be achieved at different levels. His main message was the integration of all stakeholders involved in diagnostic processes for lab personnel to administration, and the importance of commitment prior to the initiation of workflow optimization projects.

The depth of analysis was comprehensive and included each prenanalytical step of the diagnostic process starting at the sampling step on the wards and extending throughout details within the laboratory procedures. As a result of Paul´s work, we have been able to improve our internal procedures and - as the direct result - our turn-around-time. I have recognized Paul as a highly knowledgable laboratory manager, who likes to work with committed professionals. He is a patient and avid listener and a great analyst. His experience of many years in the area of organization management, having completed many projects, makes him a great help to solve pre analytical and workflow problems efficiently. I can highly recommend his valuable services for both improvement of the medical service quality and also from the economical cost-benefit side. I have learned that he has now founded his own consulting company and congratulate to this step."

Augustus Lusack MBA

Head of Pathology, Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust, Northampton, UK

Email: augustus.lusack@ngh.nhs.uk

"Paul is a results-driven consultant who is committed to giving value for money in all that he does. He knows his subject well and is passionate about its delivery. Above all Paul is a pleasure to work with - kind, generous with his advice and trustuorthy. I look forward to working with him again on other projects."

Mr Andrew Evans

Locality Director, Powys teaching Health Board, National Health Service, UK

Email: Andrew.Evans@wales.nhs.uk

"I engaged Paul to support a project to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of processes within Pathology. His knowledge and skills in LEAN concepts and application were excellent and his personal style and approach ensured they were delivered effectively in a supportive and inclusive way. The final results were nothing short of extraordinary, with significant reductions in waste and improvements in quality within the processes themselves, but equally importantly, the morale of the staff operating the processes was also significantly improved. They felt really involved and took ownership of the problems and solutions and continued to apply the learning and experience they gained from Paul to great effect once the original project had finished. I would have no hesitation in recommending Paul and his work to others seeking to achieve similar improvements."

Dr. med. Yuriko Stiegler

Zentrum für Labormedizin und Mikrobiologie Essen GmbH, Zentrallabor Alfried Krupp Krankenhaus Rüttenscheid, Alfried-Krupp-Str. 21, 45131 Essen, Germany

Email: y.stiegler@contilia.de

"We had the fortune to conduct a project with Paul Button in our hospital laboratory in November 2011. During a week of intense work he and his co-workers conducted a profound analysis of work processes involving all our staff members as partners in this difficult task. He enlighted the basic principles of six sigma to our team in the most passionate way. Through his impressive ability to motivate people he even managed to carry along the most sceptical staff members. With his extensive knowledge he was able to show us new perspectives on how to optimize workflow and efficacy. Although he accompanied us for a week only he left permanent values and generated a positive attitude in our team. It was an absolute outstanding experience for us to work with Paul Button. We are grateful for this opportunity and wish him all the best for his future projects."

Peter Martin

Directorate Manager Pathology/Therapies, Northampton General Hospital, UK

Email: peterj.martin33@btinternet.com

"I first met Paul several years ago, when we were looking to increase the productivity of our pathology department at Northampton General Hospital. We had maintained yearly increases in productivity over a number of years by critically reviewing our process and investment in capital equipment. We noticed that our productivity was starting to flatten at a time of ever increasing demand and restricted finances. Our response to this was to ask several major equipment companies to join us in reviewing our procedures in relation to their systems and overall productivity. All concluded that our approach was extremely efficient. We clearly had to find a different approach.

We made contact with Paul as an advocate of the LEAN methodology with experience in the healthcare environment. This resulted in Paul and his associates undertaking a Kaizen event that lasted for one week concentrating on our specimen reception. The results were dramatic reducing sample process time in some cases by as much as fifty percent. In the light of this we expanded the project to a full LEAN event, this further increasing our productivity. During this time Paul also supported the training of our own in house LEAN team. Paul’s enthusiasm for the process was infectious, his ability to manage a project and to achieve planned targets were second to none. He has helped and supported us in smaller projects since and his leadership and belief in what he is doing is without question. I would have no hesitation in recommending Paul to you and I am sure you will have a successful outcome to your LEAN projects."

Professor Aurel Perren

Director Institute for Pathology, Murtenstrasse 31, Postfach 62, CH-3010 Bern, Switzerland

Email: aurel.perren@pathology.unibe.ch

"Since August 2009 I have held the position of head of the Institute of Pathology at University of Bern. As part of the initiated reorganisations and after a Lean assessment, conducted by Hans Klein and Paul Button, I decided to perform a process improvement project based on lean principles in the area of laboratory Clinical Pathology (histology lab). As an external consultant, Dr. Klein guided the "lean team" consisting of staff from all institute areas involved in several sub-processes through this re-organization. Under his supervision the in-house team developed all suggestions for improvement and reported to the executive steering commitee for strategic decisions on a weekly basis. I found Dr. Klein to be a very friendly, winning, objective and consistent person. With always the agreed goals in mind, he mastered the Lean Team to implement improvements within the planned time frame. Hans Klein was the catalyst, the change was due to the work of the teams involved and the leadership he provided. He has brought a very objective external view on the organisation of the Department and always was able to move emotional reactions to the level of objective reflection.

By the strong involvement of the in-house team, the lean team members acquired know-how, which still is used in ongoing improvement processes. For my institute, the attendance of Dr. Hans Klein has paid off in this change process. Without his external view the change processes would have taken much more time and would be less fundamentally effective. In our laboratory we now employ less people in less space and the processing time of the samples in the laboratory is shorter and more constant. Equally important is the better monitoring of the working processes and the presentation of daily performance metrics. After about two years the "Change process" is still ongoing. Actually the knowledge transferred by Hans is used in several ongoing projects within my institute. If I once more had to manage such a fundamental re-organisation project, I would partner again with Dr. Hans Klein and can recommend him unreservedly for this task."