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Tag: Wellcome Sanger

Building a Team That Improves Itself: Lean at the Wellcome Sanger Spatial Genomics Team

Posted on by Lee Walker

Continuous improvement in a scientific research team starts with helping people see their own work differently. The Spatial Genomics team at Wellcome Sanger Institute were a relatively new team using cutting-edge techniques. With a scale-up deadline approaching and all delivery under strict Covid restrictions, they needed to analyse and improve their processes quickly.

The Challenge

The team needed to operate at a significantly higher scale from early 2021 but their processes had never been systematically mapped or improved. Lab layout was complex. Sample tracking was consuming significant time. And all of this needed to be resolved through remote delivery.

What We Did

WBT designed and delivered a series of half-day collaborative workshops, blending Lean learning with live improvement activity. The team were helped to understand their processes in their entirety including the people, process, and technology.

Key outputs included a redesigned lab layout using optimal flow principles, a visual management board for real-time sample tracking, smaller batch size experiments, and Statistical Process Control (SPC) measures developed by the team themselves.

The Results

  • New lab designed using optimal flow methods and implemented
  • Visual management board introducedcontinuous improvement scientific research team with every sample tracked in real time
  • Research scientist customers receiving data back faster with significantly fewer queries
  • Team fully self-sufficient in continuous improvement, owning and driving their own change agenda

“By learning to see our process through a Lean lens we were able to identify the waste steps, which primarily revolved around wasting significant amounts of time tracking samples.”

Minal Patel, Senior Scientific Manager, Wellcome Sanger Institute

“Spatial is no longer something I stress about. I know they are doing the critical thinking and improvements for themselves and they are just on top of things now.”

Rachel Nelson, Senior Scientific Manager, Wellcome Sanger Institute

Could your organisation benefit from a similar approach?
Book a free 30-minute diagnostic call with Lee Walker. Call 07736 379911 or email info@wbt.orWalker Business Transformation helped the Wellcome Sanger Spatial Genomics team prepare to operate at scale, redesign their lab, and build the confidence and tools to drive continuous improvement themselves.g.uk

Solving Stock Control at Scale: Kanban at Wellcome Sanger Institute

Posted on by Lee Walker

Kanban stock management transformed laboratory operations at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. When the Covid-19 Genomics Surveillance Project scaled to 64,000 samples per week, stock management became a critical bottleneck. The lab was experiencing over-ordering, under-ordering, insufficient storage, poor forecasting, and ambiguous accountability for ordering decisions.

The Challenge

Team leads and Advanced Research Assistants were spending significant time managing stock rather than processing samples. There was no consistent system for ordering, storage, or reordering triggers. Every consumable shortage required manual intervention.

What We Did

WBT worked with the Sample Management and Portering team to design a Kanban-based approach to stock management, developed collaboratively with all key stakeholders to ensure it would work in practice.

The team procured appropriate shelving and storage, set initial stock levels, and developed a reordering process and Kanban card system that made the right action obvious to anyone in the lab.

The Results

  • Consistent stock organisation across all lab areas
  • Stock kept close to point of use, Kanban stock management laboratoryreducing motion waste
  • Regular team review of minimum and maximum reorder levels
  • Significant reduction in stock running out
  • Team leads freed to focus on sample processing

“The new Kanban system for stock control has brought about many positives for the Heron team. It has provided organisation and structure to the ordering of stock items, taking pressure off the Advanced Research Assistants and team leads and allowing them to focus on sample processing.”

Sara, Senior Scientific Manager, Wellcome Sanger Institute

Could your organisation benefit from a similar approach?
Book a free 30-minute diagnostic call with Lee Walker. Call 07736 379911 or email info@wbt.org.uk

From 28 Days to 9: Eliminating a Backlog in the Wellcome Sanger Genotyping Lab

Posted on by Lee Walker

Lean Six Sigma laboratory improvement delivered dramatic results at the Wellcome Sanger Genotyping Lab. Following a period of staff turnover, the team was in difficulty. A backlog of 160 plates had built up. Processing times had stretched to 28 days. Clients were chasing work daily and some had already begun outsourcing to third-party suppliers.

The Challenge

Newer team members lacked the skills to handle the full range of work. Experienced staff were cherry-picking easier plates, leaving the hardest work untouched. The team had no shared understanding of their own performance.

What We Did

WBT applied a Systems Thinking approach, helping the team see how their work actually flowed, not how they assumed it did.

  • Introduced 5S, all work organised in date order, eliminating cherry picking
  • Developed team-owned performance measures using Statistical Process Control (SPC)
  • Introduced daily huddles around a shared work board
  • Built skills transfer into daily workflow with experienced staff coaching newer members on harder plates in real time

The Results

  • Processing time reduced from 28 days to under 9 days
  • Backlog reduced from 160 to 23 plates
  • Approximately 30 daily client chase requests eliminated entirely

The team moved from working as individuals to operating as one unit with shared accountability and daily improvement routines embedded into how they worked.

Could your organisation benefit from a similar approach?
Book a free 30-minute diagnostic call with Lee Walker. Call 07736 379911 or email info@wbt.org.uk

From 19 Days to 2.5 Days: How Lean Transformed Covid-19 Genome Sequencing at Wellcome Sanger Institute

Posted on by Lee Walker

Lean process improvement in scientific research can deliver results that seem impossible. When the Covid-19 pandemic struck, the Wellcome Sanger Institute faced an extraordinary challenge: scale genome sequencing from a few thousand samples per week to tens of thousands, with a turnaround time of 19.5 days. The government needed results in days, not weeks.

Walker Business Transformation was brought in to help.

The Challenge

The Covid-19 Genomics Surveillance Project (Heron) had grown from a small-scale operation into one of the most critical scientific programmes in the UK. The existing process was not designed for this scale. Every day of delay meant slower insight into how the virus was spreading and mutating.

What We Did

We deployed a DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control) methodology — working alongside the Sanger team to map the end-to-end pipeline, identify root causes of delay, and implement targeted improvements at every stage of the process.

Critically, we didn’t just fix the immediate problem. We embedded continuous improvement capability within the team itself — so they could sustain and scale improvement independently.

The Results

  • 19.5 days → 2.5 days — turnaround time for genome sequencing
  • 1,500 → 64,000 — samples processed per week
  • 43x scale-up in throughput achieved

“WBT consultants were essential to the success of the Covid-19 Genomics Surveillance Project at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. By bringing continuous improvement into the culture of all teams involved in the project, we have been able to deliver unprecedented numbers of high-quality genome sequences of Covid-19 to the British Government and the scientific community. WBT drove considerable improvements on turnaround times from more than 19 days to less than 3 days and provided fundamental counsel at important decision-making instances.”

— Senior Scientific Manager, Wellcome Sanger Institute

The Lesson

The Sanger project demonstrates what’s possible when Lean methodology meets genuine operational urgency. The process improvements weren’t theoretical — they were designed collaboratively with the people doing the work, tested quickly, and scaled at pace.

Whether your organisation faces a scaling challenge, a quality problem, or simply too much time consumed by work that adds no value — the same principles apply.

Could your organisation benefit from a similar approach?
Book a free 30-minute diagnostic call with Lee Walker — 07736 379911 | info@wbt.org.uk | www.wbt.org.uk