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Meet the 2018 Great LSS Race Winners and Competitors

Another high-stakes, fast-paced Great LSS Race is in the books. It all went down at Process Palooza 2018 in the Price Center ballroom. Competitors arrived bright and early – some seasoned vets from 2017, some brand new, all with training Lean Six Sigma (LSS) methodologies.

As LSS is all about being efficient, organizers wasted no time in dividing competitors into six teams, with about six members each. Teams’ were tasked with tackling tricky campus processes. Half the teams worked with UC San Diego Health, which needed help with its patient flow and capacity management transfer procedures. The other teams lent a hand to Fleet Services, which wanted to look at its department vehicle request process.

After a brief orientation, teams were off and running, filling up whiteboards with fishbone diagrams and process maps. By mid-afternoon it was “pencils down” and teams huddled to prepare their 10-minute pitches to judges.

One participant – Jeno Bonetti, from IT Services – described the experience as one of the most challenging exercises in which he’s ever participated. “Getting a team to work together, and perform well with little to no advance affiliation is tough on its own,” he commented. “Throw in a problem to be analyzed and solved and you’ve got the ingredients for a very challenging event. Top it off by compressing the timeline into five hours with a cohesive presentation at the end and you have great challenge! I tip my hat to the winners for they have truly risen to the occasion and performed well.”

Speaking of the winners…teams emerged victorious after wowing the judges. Meet them below!

Interested in knowing more about the Great LSS Race? Read this first-person account from a 2018 winning team member, and check out the actual improvements made resulting from the 2017 Great LSS Race. 

Winning Teams and Members

Process 1: UC San Diego Health Care Patient Flow & Capacity Management Department Transfer Center

Embolden Golden

embolden-golden.png

Name Title Department
Gloria O’Connor Project Policy Analyst Office of Clinical Trials Administration (OCTA)
Miguel Rodriguez Educational Technology Analyst IT Services
Michael Kirkpatrick Technical Project Manager IT Services
Tareq Turjman Project Manager Information Services, Health System
Carlos Rojas Lead Project Manager Clinical and Translational Research Institute
Leticia Egea Program Coordinator Medicine/Endo

Process 2: UC San Diego's Fleet Services Department Vehicle Request

Turquoise Trailblazers

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Name Title Department
Lorena Smith Principal Analyst, Supervisor (Assoc. Director) Human Research Protections Program
Csilla Csori Data Systems Architect Supercomputer Center
Beverly Ward Business Manager Student Life Business Office
Arden Tran Research Facilitator Research IT 
Ana Portlock Program Manager Integrated Procure to Pay Solutions (IPPS)
Farah Rahman Business Process Manager

All Teams

Process 1

 Lean and Green 

Name Title Department
Valeria Estrada Assistant Director Tissue Technology Shared Resource Biorepository and Tissue Technology 
Katarina Tang Sponsored Research Analyst Office of Contract & Grant Administration
Jeno Bonetti Change Management IT Services
Davis Becker Management & Program Analyst VA Hospital, Systems Redesign & Innovation Office
Kevin Waldrop Administrative Officer, Special Projects Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Business Office

Lean Code Blue

Name 

Title

Department

Walter Zimmer

M.SC.

Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)

Gabriel Lopez

Sr. Academic Personnel Analyst

Academic Personnel Services

Anne Goldenberg

Data Analyst  

Pharmacy

Manisha Kanodia

Senior Applications and Database Developer

Executive Vice Chancellor’s Academic Affairs Unit

Harrison Watts

Supervisor

Research Information Systems, IT Services

Process 2

Lean Depot

Name 

Title

Department

Margaret Ramaeker

Research Administrator  

Computer Science & Engineering

Pam Tallarida

Sr. Training & Client Support Analyst

Educational Initiatives, Change & Client Services, OCGA

Kevin DelMastro

Senior Academic Personnel Analyst

Academic Personnel Services

Pauline Loyola

Graduate Admissions Credential Evaluator

Graduate Admissions

Aaron Smith

Asset Manager

Facilities Management

Black in Business 

Name 

Title

Department

Charles Cannon 

Infrastructure Admin (SysAdmin)

Student Affairs Technology Services (Enrollment Management)

Deanna Hill

Finance Manager

Computer Science & Engineering

Julie Moritz

Facilities/Safety Coordinator

Electrical & Computer Engineering

Tehseen Lazzouni

Financial Analyst  

Chemistry & Biochemistry

Dhara Parekh

Student

UC San Diego Extension

Kristine McCabe

Budget Analyst

Budget & Financial Forecasting