Why Schowengerdt Consulting
I founded Schowengerdt Consulting after 27 years of health care leadership and operations experience because I became excited about the way that process flow and process improvement transforms organizations. With training in many methods and work experience with many different processes, I have discovered practical ways to improve processes, how work gets done, and in turn, the care provided to patients.
Improvement is not just for those organizations performing below expectations, but for successful organizations achieving or surpassing benchmarks. The root causes of process failure are often masked when markets are strong and demand is high, but processes that are overburdened and unreliable cannot perform under stress. The stress of change in technologies which aid and augment treatment, of market shifts and of reform, underscore the need for core processes to be streamlined and unfettered by waste and inefficiency. That done organizations can thrive even in the most turbulent times.
The mission of Schowengerdt Consulting is to support organizations seeking transformational change, by introducing and embedding the concepts of process flow and process improvement.
Why A Focus on Flow
The essence of this work is creating flow in processes. (Thus, the domain name of sc-flow.com reiterates creating flow in work processes a central theme.) Within all the terms found in the quality improvement vocabulary, flow stands by itself. It is emblematic of the continuous delivery of product, service and quality, unblemished by waste, defects or rework. The aim of Schowengerdt Consulting is to facilitate development or refinement of processes which deliver the right amount of information, product or service, at the right time, to the right place, to meet that patient’s (or other customer’s) needs. When that happens, customers recognize that experience as flow!
The secondary aim of Schowengerdt Consulting is to be engaged by clients only until the knowledge is transferred. Successful organizations will adopt as their own, the principles and tools of workflow.
The use of the four arrows within the logo represents the commitment to use the Plan-Do-Study–Act cycle in this work, as well as the commitment to support, continuously, the work of clients. Introduced by Dr. W. Edwards Deming, and also referred to as the scientific method, the PDCA cycle symbolizes the drive to seek continuous improvement by deliberate and thoughtful actions. Repeating the improvement cycle, as demonstrated by the four arrows, is what ultimately creates flow. That pledge is made to clients of this firm.