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Eight sources of waste – Lean efforts to reduce the “waste of processing” can drive cost productivity

One of the primary tenets of Lean is the concept of value added activities. These can be defined as actions which transform raw materials and information into products and services which the customer is willing to pay for.  Anything that does not add value can be considered “waste”.  These are activities which consume time, space, or other resources, but don’t contribute to making value.

Classic Sources of Waste

Lean practitioners are familiar with the eight sources of waste.  They form the basis for lean thinking and are often used to offer a framework for removing waste (and cost) from any process.

  • Defects
  • Overproduction
  • Waiting
  • Non-Utilized Talent
  • Transportation
  • Inventory
  • Motion
  • Extra Processing
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How to apply “Little’s Law” to improve lead time and drive lean improvements

Observing the queue of people being checked out at a large grocery or retail store can be fascinating.  You can see the shoppers deciding on which line to enter – based on the number of people, how many things are in their cart, how quickly the cashier is ringing up each sale, whether someone is assisting with bagging process, etc.  Although most people don’t realize it, they are making an estimate on how long it will take for them to get through the checkout line by using a theory called “Little’s Law”. 

This fundamental concept was developed over 50 years ago.  It enables us to predict a specific process behavior and is named after John Little, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

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When identifying continuous improvement opportunities, small defects can be a big deal to your customers

Anyone who travels often has a story to tell about an unpleasant experience with air travel.  Many of these stories revolve around weather, cancelled flights, rude passengers, sitting on a runway, etc.  I want to share a set of personal observations that prompted me to think about the perception of quality.

Actually, this particular day started out as quite routine.  The check-in, security, and boarding processes were uneventful – just the way you would like them to be!  I took my seat and soon the flight attendant was giving the usual announcements.  You know the drill…

“place your smaller items under your seats…you must be willing and able to aid the flight attendants in case of an emergency if you are in the exit row…laptops cannot be placed in your seatback pocket…”

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Are we working safely? Or are we just lucky?

Imagine that your group or organization had just reached a milestone of achievement that was noteworthy.  Perhaps it was a new productivity target or quality performance or safety record.  The management team has decided that they should recognize everyone for their efforts and a celebration is planned.  What could possibly be the down side of that?

celebration

 

Unfortunately, some celebrations ring hollow – even to those who are the recipients of the accolades or recognition.  Why?  Perhaps you have heard some people gossiping in muted tones as they await the lunch that is being served to them to acknowledge their achievement.  For these employees, there is no connection between anything that they did and the outcome.

“Sure, it’s great to get a free lunch/pizza/whatever.  But I don’t really have a clue about what we did differently to get to this performance level.”

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How to use tiny habits to accomplish bigger goals

I thought that an appropriate starting point for this blog would be to review a concept  which I believe holds great promise in the way that we think about improvement.  In the spirit of the Continuous MILE (minor improvements / large effects), the notion of a “tiny habit” may be viewed as perhaps even less significant than a minor improvement. Yet, it can be the start of something much more substantial.

The originator of this concept is Dr. BJ Fogg, Director of the Persuasive Tech Lab at Stanford University.

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