Waste Identification Leads to Increased Operational Effectiveness
What is waste in an operational environment in the first place? Driving a culture of waste elimination you must first know how to properly know if waste is present within your operational environment. I am sure you have all heard “well we always have done it this way”. While all along, the way it has been done for years produced the most amount of waste. Let’s explore how you could identify waste using the 8 common areas of waste identification. The end state, is to operate within an environment of zero waste maximizing your overall operational efficiency.
Over Production – Producing more than the customer or next operation can consume
Inventory – Material sitting anywhere within the value stream is non value added
Waiting – Down time within the process where value added activity has stopped
Motion – Any physical movement in excess when performing an operation is non-value added
Transportation – Movement of product or material between or among operations
Excessive Processing – Additional run time
Defects – Any process, or service that fails to meet specifications creating rework
Non-Utilized Human Potential – Underutilization of human capital in experience, capability and un tapped potential
It sounds complicated to identify waste, however once you understand what to look for it is much easier to eliminate it. Once you have identified an area of opportunity creating waste, look for simplistic process changes that can reduce the waste.
Utilize frontline leaders, as well as workforce employees to eliminate waste as it is often creating a pain point and many times they already have the solution, they just never have never have been asked or given permission to make change.
To learn more about Operational Excellence, call us at 800-246-8694 or email at info@csipbl.com.
