It is very sad to see how mentall walls between sectors of society prevent us from learning. It is possible to see how all the learning that has resulted from introducing (and sometimes rejecting) new concepts in industrial environments apparently is unknown to other sectors.
Such as activity based costing. Once a hype, now seen as overburdening the primary process with administrative work that does not add value, even introduces waste, focus on the wrong things. The mistake is the idea that detailed control information will result in better steering of operations….by outsiders.
In healthcare the whole hype is re-enacted as if nothing is learned. Activity based costing is introduced, more detail is asked. The Wall Street Journal has an article on how the number of codes used to bill insurance companies is to be increased 10-fold. For example from 5 possible codes for a sprained ankle to 45 (!). Total number of codes will be a staggering 155.000……..
In the Netherlands 30.000 ” DBC’s ” have been introduced, a more sophisticated implementation of the same idea. Already there are plans to reduce the number to 3000.
Apparently we will just have to wait untill it is shown (again) that this is a road to nowhere.
