by Ken Snyder

Jabil Healthcare in Shanghai, China, is reportedly the world’s largest manufacturing plant of medical devices. Jabil produces medical devices as a contract manufacturer for almost all of the medical device companies in the world. The plant in Shanghai has more than 4,000 employees.

The Jabil Healthcare plant started adopting Lean tools and systems more than ten years ago. About four years ago, the plant began to seriously implement the Shingo Guiding Principles to guide its improvement projects in preparation for applying for the Shingo Prize.

When the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, struck in nearby Wuhan in early January 2020 and the Chinese government implemented lockdown protocols throughout China, the government deemed the Jabil Healthcare facility “essential.” Site managers were immediately faced with the challenge of finding ways to keep people safe while keeping the plant operating. In the height of the crisis, I asked them to give me a report of the special practices they adopted in responding to the virus. It should be noted that most of the production personnel work in clean rooms and are accustomed to wearing masks and gowns.

Based on the concept that keeping people safe is the most important way to respect every individual, following are some of the additional practices Jabil Healthcare adopted to keep its people safe:

1) Employee engagement. Many of the following ideas were initiated by plant leaders, but some of them came from the active engagement of team members. The plant leaders report that the engagement of the team members resulted in wide acceptance and adherence to the practices.
2) Surgical masks. They provide surgical masks to all employees every day to wear outside the plant. While they also advocate social distancing, there are many times when safe social distancing is not possible. For example, public transportation is the only means by which many employees can travel to and from work. Masks provide additional protection when social distancing is not possible.
3) Social distancing on site. Despite having a mask and other protective gear, all people are instructed to maintain safe social distancing in any queues in the plant. This includes the check-in line, the cafeteria line, cafeteria seating, and so on.
4) Medical check-in. When arriving at the plant every day, employees are processed through a simple health check. Medical personnel take temperatures and perform a brief health check to verify that symptoms of the virus are not present.
5) N95 mask. Upon check-in, all employees are provided an N95 mask to use for the morning. Everyone is expected to wear a mask while in the building.
6) Sanitizer stations are set up in all work locations. People are encouraged to sanitize regularly.
7) Food delivery. All office people have food delivered to them. They eat in their offices to reduce overcrowding the cafeteria.
8) Staggered meal times. Lunch breaks are staggered to further reduce crowding in the cafeteria.
9) Cafeteria seating. Social distancing is maintained. This is made possible by reducing the number of people in the cafeteria and by delivering meals to the office personnel.
10) After their lunch break, everyone is rechecked for fevers and given new N95 masks to wear for the afternoon.
11) Disinfect equipment. The site has implemented a regular cycle of disinfecting all shared equipment, such as copiers and printers.
12) Air disinfectant. Where possible, the site has set up air disinfecting stations.
13) Size of meetings. The number of people who may attend a given meeting is limited to eight. Masks are required in all meetings. The same is true when riding in the elevators in the building.
14) A new surgical mask is provided upon departure from the building.
15) Flexing. Despite having a large employee population in a huge metropolitan area, Jabil Healthcare has reported very few people getting sick. And due to good cross-training, when someone does become sick, the site is able to flex and keep more essential product lines running.

The site reports that the people in the facility deeply appreciate these actions. They know it is the surest way to keep everyone safe.

For photos and descriptions of the special actions of Jabil Healthcare Shanghai, visit https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/TiZA6YBAQjNcrR9h_ozygg.