Four HERA laboratory planner staff members recently added a new accreditation to their name: Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. President Ken Mohr, Laboratory Subject Matter Expert Jinhee Lee, Laboratory Subject Matter Expert Clay Stafford and Senior Laboratory Architect Kassandra Garza all completed an 8-week course at the University of Georgia and will use this new credential to improve our internal processes and project work.
The course renewed our appreciation of the planning muscles we use every day to provide clarity, efficiency, stakeholder alignment and improved decision‑making in our projects.
The additional value gained will directly improve how we plan laboratories, buildings and campus systems through:
- Sharper project definition to help sort needs over wants when dealing with user requests, utilization debates and infrastructure constraints.
- Data‑driven justification for why a facility needs to change, what is required and the potential operational impact.
- Process‑first thinking of how processes and people flow through a space and where waste exists, in addition to thinking through square footage and adjacencies.
- The principles of DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, control) to provide a structured way to move from “we think” to “we know.”
- Improved credibility with key decision makers.
Laboratory planning and design is centered around complicated spaces and workflows, including laboratories, prep rooms, equipment zones, circulation, safety systems and research processes. The Lean Six Sigma training allows HERA professionals to dig even deeper in the early stages of a project to:
- Map lab workflows to identify wasted motion, duplicated equipment or inefficient adjacencies.
- Optimize utilization using real data rather than anecdotal scheduling habits.
- Right‑size infrastructure by understanding actual demand vs. perceived need.
- Design for flexibility by identifying where variability is highest and where standardization creates stability.
- Improve changeovers such as between lab sections, research cycles or equipment setups.
- Reduce operational friction, which are the hidden costs that make facilities feel “hard to use.”
The Lean Six Sigma training adds a new tool and critical thinking to further elevate HERA’s programming approach, making recommendations to our clients harder to challenge and easier to fund. The training aligns with our approach to creating agile floor plates; user‑defined teaching and research environments; and future‑ready science spaces.