“Small-batch” management sped up vaccines and should be a trend for 2021
Besides being the best news of the year, the record-time development and approval of the first vaccines for covid-19 brings a management lesson that should be a trend for 2021.
It was undoubtedly the result of the effort of countless researchers, institutions and companies, and of a concentration of resources without which it would not have been possible to develop and approve, in practically one year, a vaccine that would normally take a decade.
However, few realized that this agility was also made possible by well-known lean management concepts, which can be clearly recognized in some of the strategies that were used.
Let us use the example of the concept of small-batch processing applied to the review for vaccine approval at most of the world's regulatory agencies.
Unlike the traditional practice of waiting for all the research and development to be carried out and completed and then, at the end, receiving a large batch of information to do all the checks, the practice adopted was to carry out reviews at each stage of the research.
In other words, each “package” of information was reviewed as soon as it became available, generating quick answers at each phase.
It may not seem like it, but this change in the way the work was done was in itself fundamental to accelerating the whole process, maintaining quality and generating worldwide hope for the pandemic, with the first approval in record time by the British regulatory agency.
This way of managing, very different from the traditional one, is one of the foundations of the lean system, which brings a series of concepts and practices that seek precisely speed of response.
Working in “small batches” means never letting parts, facts, data or problems accumulate for long periods and only then processing them. That would certainly make everything much slower and more complicated.
Second, when analyzing the small batches, one should seek to involve people and give quick responses to the problems identified at each stage, if possible at the exact moment they occur, always trying to identify and attack the root causes.
And third, all of this should be done in a continuous flow that involves all of the organization's employees and processes.
This management lesson should be a trend for 2021. Instability and uncertainty are expected to continue or even increase next year. There will certainly be no shortage of everyday problems in every area.
Thus, letting problems accumulate and only then trying to understand and solve them will only bring even more failures and headaches. It will be much better to see
processes always through this lens: small batches, quick responses, continuous flows… enabling agile responses and greater adaptability, which are essential today.
This is a fundamental mindset that should be reinforced next year, not only for companies but for society as a whole.
I wish everyone a 2021 of good health, both personally and in business.
The column is going on recess and will return in February 2021.
