Dr. Richard Kunkle Presents at Lean Education Academic Network

The 6^th annual Lean Education Academic Network in association with MIT and the University of Alabama in Huntsville was held in Huntsville, AL from 29 Sep-1 Oct, 2011.  Dr. Richard F. Kunkle delivered two presentations and was selected to a panel of colleagues to discuss Integration of Lean across Curricula.  Organizations including MIT, Univ. of Alabama-Huntsville, Ohio State University, University of Michigan, Auburn University, University of Kentucky, Old Dominion University, Loyola Marymount, University of Southern California and many others including participants from China and Mexico were in attendance.

Dr. Kunkle delivered a presentation entitled, “Teaching Cultural Change at the Graduate and Undergraduate Level.”  The presentation described the pedagogy involved in teaching students how and why to lead cultural change in an organization to develop a culture of Mutual Trust and Respect between leaders and front line employees.  This class has been very successful with doubling of class enrollment over the last year.

Dr. Kunkle also presented a program on the, “Success of the Cultural Change First Model in Healthcare.”  This presentation described the implementation of the cultural change first model in a Cardiovascular Surgery Value Stream.  Both the techniques and the outcomes were elucidated which resulted in this “Greenfield Initiative” being selected as one of the top fifty Cardiovascular Surgery groups in the nation within 2 years after initiating the program and consistently performing well above the Society of Thoracic Surgeons’ Database means.

The Panel Discussion on which Dr. Kunkle participated was entitled, “Integration of Lean across Curricula.”  Dr. Kunkle was joined on the panel by members from Ohio State University and University of Alabama at Huntsville.  Dr. Kunkle shared the integration of Operational Excellence content that we have been able to achieve at Saint Vincent through the dedicated and enthusiastic support of fellow Saint Vincent faculty including Mark Abramovic, Jeff Goodwin, Bill Hisker, Tom Cline and Bob Markley as well as others.  We have integrated Operational Excellence into our MIS courses, Finance and Accounting, Marketing and Strategic Management.  We continue to expand our integration to proposed courses including, Advanced Statistical Process Control, and Advanced Quantitative OE and Simulation.

Dr. Kunkle has been elected to the Planning Committee of Lean Education Academic Network for next year.  Our next meeting will be held in Norfolk, VA at Old Dominion University in Sep 2012.

For more information about Dr. Kunkle’s participation in the conference or either the graduate or undergraduate academic programs, please give KCOE a call at 724.805.2142 or by email.