The Seven Deadly Wasters - Lean Waste Identification
When someone asks me "what is Lean Office or Lean Service" I will go to the short answer and say "Lean is a continuous improvement process that helps businesses put systems in place leading to sane employees, happy customers and increased profits."
The true key to Lean is a identification and elimination of waste! Muda is the Japanese word for waste and the seven deadly wastes identified by Taiichi Ohno (1912-90) of Toyota are:
1. Overproduction: Anything that is more than customer demands. Overproduction can hide other defects.
2. Waiting or Delay: Waiting for anything - people, materials, machines or information are all wastes. Often in a service business waiting can lead to taking the "low hanging fruit" or business that is easy to get but often not matching your perfect customer.
3. Unclear communication: Communication needs to be clear and understandable to staff, customers and vendors. The time spent re-communicating is better spent building strong relationships.
4. Over processing: This can be anything from re-entry of data to duplication of a task by different department.
5. Inventory: Having too much or not enough of supplies. Running out of toilet paper or having toner for the "old" copy machine still on the shelf are great examples of inventory tracking.
6. Unnecessary Movement - waste of motion: This can be from bad ergonomics to poor layout of business machines.
7. Defects or Errors: The cost of redoing or correcting anything! As my dad would say, "Linda, if you don't have time to do it right the first time, when will you find time to correct it?"
Start small this week and see what errors you can detect in your company. Identification is the first step to correction. Before you "start correcting" look around and make sure you find the ROOT cause! We will talk about that next week.
Copyright 2010 Linda Lucas Fayerweather MBA EA
http://www.changinglanes.biz/
419-897-0528
linda@changinglanes.biz
Business Plans Make Profit!
Waste Management
In a 2007 study on municipal solid waste (MSW), Americans generated roughly 254 million tons of solid waste. Further, 169 tons were discarded into the municipal waste stream to be disposed of for energy recovery efforts like recycling or becoming contents in our landfills. Many people assume that "junk" mail makes up the bulkof the MSW. Here's the real deal about what's going into our landfills and recycling efforts:Making the most of marketing has become a opportunity of looking where the discards end up.
2.1% Standard Mail
2.2% Disposable Diapers
2.3% Plastic Bags, Sacks & Wraps
2.3% Magazines and Newspapers
3.0% Glass beer and soft drink bottles
4.9% Corrugated Boxes
5.5% Furniture & Furnishings
6.9% Yard Trimmings
18.2% Food Scraps
Copyright 2010 Rebecca Booth
Marketing Goddess
Imagine That!
419.855.3399
Celebrating 13 years of delivering results for our clients.
http://www.rebeccaboothmarketinggoddess.com/
Source: 2007 MSW Characterization Report. Source Note: "The items show here do not represent all items in MSW, and therefore do not total 100%.
Muda QuotesWasteful Quotes! Who would have thought this was such a popular topic. Enjoy.
"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life." Charles Darwin
"All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk." Ronald Reagan
"Architecture is the art of how to waste space." Philip Johnson
"Be in the habit of getting up bright and early on the weekends. Why waste such precious time in bed?" Marilyn vos Savant
"Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is." Thomas Szasz
"Don't waste your time away thinkin' 'bout yesterday's blues." Jon Bon Jovi
"Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste." Benjamin Franklin
"I wasted time, and now doth time waste me." William Shakespeare
"Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition, is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have." Dale Carnegie
