Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
and unnecessary walking are all components of wasted motion.”
30
Kan-
ban
is translated from Japanese as “visible record”—it embodies the
principle that the fl ow of materials must be carefully managed in order
to limit inventory in the pipeline.
Vokoun used 5S, pull production, and
kanban
to recreate the modes
of technical production within the MBPG. Working closely with the
technicians, Vokoun gained hands-on experience with a particular step
of the sequencing process known as “ligation.” First, he sought to iden-
tify problems: process travel maps were drawn, cycle times were mea-
sured, and equipment lists were made. Figure 3.4 shows hand-drawn
maps of the movement of workers around the lab during the ligation
step. Vokoun's redesigned workfl ow reduced the manual time involved
in the process from 9.3 hours to 6.1 hours.
31
Likewise, fi gure 3.5 shows
photographs of the ligation workstations before and after their redesign
according to the principles of 5S. The ligation team also created special-
ized kits containing all the reagents needed for the preparation of one
DNA library, avoiding multiple trips to the storerooms or freezers. As
can be seen from these fi gures, Vokoun's focus was on creating effi -
ciencies by ordering space: moving equipment, economizing movement,
creating visual cues, and making sure materials were where they could
be best utilized. A similar redesign was undertaken for the transfor-
mation and DNA preparation steps, resulting in an overall redesign of
the MBPG lab space. Vokoun concluded that the problems he encoun-
tered “had nothing to do with the actual molecular biology processes
performed but rather were managed into the process by the policies,
workfl ow designs, and organizational design of the MBPG.”
32
What
made the MBPG—and by extension, the Broad as a whole—successful
or unsuccessful was not the quality of the “biology,” as conventionally
understood, but attention to the details of the operation as a manufac-
turing and industrial process.
33
The requirements of sequencing operations also demanded new ways
of organizing people. Scaling up to production sequencing meant hir-
ing people with experience in engineering and in managing large teams.
Knowing something about biology was important, but it was even more
important to know how to organize people and how to manage proj-
ects. On the fl oor of the sequencing lab, PhDs in biology are few and
far between. Many of the workers are young, often coming straight
from undergraduate degrees in biology; there are also a disproportion-
ate number of nonwhites and immigrants.
34
The tasks to be performed
are often repetitive but depend on a high degree of skill and precision
(for example, pipetting an identical, precise volume of solution over and
