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Anything a customer does not require
is Waste.
As users of services and products, we all know what we do not want:
long waits for the service to be delivered, poor quality, service or
product failures. We see no reason why we should pay for these problems.
Often we do not want to pay for features we never use.
Where does waste come from? Our Ideas Article "Origins
of Waste" , updated for 2006 provides a detailed discussion.
In classical lean operations, there are eight
types of waste:
- Over production -
building up stock: more than what's needed before its needed
- Overstocking -
excessive inventory: raw materials, work in progress and finished
outputs
- Unnecessary movement -
workplace design that results in unnecessary additional movements
to carry out tasks
- Errors, rework and rejects -
outputs that do not meet the required quality
- Waiting - time
not used productivity because of delays in information, materials,
tools or people
- Transporting -
transporting materials, parts and finished products in and
out of storage or between processing steps
- Processing -
higher quality / more details than required by customer
and perhaps the most important waste of all:
- Talent -
wasting the ideas and potential innovations from people in
your organisation
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A series of posters depicting the 8 wastes in a construction
context is available for downloading (700K
file size).
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Waste
#3: Waiting
(click to enlarge)
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Waste #5: Excessive
transport
(click to enlarge)
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We work hard every day getting things done but how much do you think
the 8 wastes are costing us?
Anecdotal evidence tells us that anything up to 2 hours a day can
be spent doing things ineffectively. That is about 26% of your working
time. The UK aerospace sector reckoned that about over 95% of its activities
are non-value adding (2002).
All the wasted efforts mean more than your time or your company's money. It
also mean extra pollution from unnecessary energy use and more wasted materials
for disposal. On top of us wasting our resources today, our descendents will
be paying the environmental costs of our wastes for years to come.
This is a fearsome prospect. What company can afford
a 26% waste overhead? What community wants this burden on its
future citizens?
Waste reduction begins with managing Wasted
Talents. People at work generally know
where the wastes are and often have a pretty good idea
how to solve the specific waste problem. Once people are
invited to participate to share their ideas, the other
7 wastes can be readily tackled.
Waste Reduction
People create waste. Even with the best will in the world, we cannot
always help it! When we are dealing with other teams, suppliers or
sub-contractors, the situation becomes worse.
We take the approach that people working together need to come to an
agreement about their expectations on waste and its reduction; the roles
and responsibilities of individuals and teams.
Once you established a partnership to reduce waste, a systematic methodology
like the DMAIC process from Six Sigma
Quality can often provide a good the necessary framework to reduce
waste on a day-by-day basis.
This is then supplemented by an effective communications programme that
keeps everyone informed and motivated.
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Greenfile Developments gives
you solutions to eliminate wastes through working out where they come
from, why they occur and who's best to resolve them. We can help you
put together a system that allows your teams to spot waste, resolve
problems and innovate to eliminate the cause of wastes.
Best of all, we help you do this without capital investment. We can even help
you recover lost cash from the waste stream.
Contact us to find out how
you can improve your performance without costing the earth. |
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