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
Showing posts with label waste. Show all posts
Showing posts with label waste. Show all posts
Monday, October 18, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Changing & Taxes
Business tips for week of January 25, 2010
“We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.” H.L. Mencken
====================================
Change the World
====================================
Maybe you have seen:
“Please consider the environment before printing out this email” at the bottom of emails. I just started noticing it late last year and some very quick research lead me to a book printed in 2004 called “Change the World for a Fiver”. Lots of great tips mostly for the home and individual and this is classic LEAN – eliminating waste. Eliminating waste one tiny step at a time is a never-ending project with huge impact for business by reducing cost to your organization.
Even though Kermit the Frog says “It Ain’t easy being Green”, when you start small, it can be quite infectious. Where to start?
1. Turn off equipment when it's not being used.
2. Encourage communications by email, and read email messages.
3. Turn out lights when you leave a room.
4. Produce double-sided documents whenever possible.
5. Do not leave taps dripping (Okay, this is old – my older sister won a science fair project on the leaky faucet in 1964!)
6. Print drafts on the backside of scrap paper.
7. Find a supply of paper with maximum available recycled content.
8. Choose suppliers who take back packaging for reuse.
9. Take your own bags everywhere.
10. Recycle. Just about everything has a second or third life.
Next week: an interview with my favorite recyclers!
Copyright 2009 Linda Fayerweather
What's working in your Business?
Changing Lanes LLC
http://www.changinglanes.biz/
====================================
Cell Phone and Taxes
====================================
If you have teenagers at home, you've probably marveled at how they can sit for hours with their cell phones, texting away in a language that looks like it was designed specifically to shut you out. Kids these days (and some adults, too) have built their lives around cell phones and text messaging. It's fast becoming a cliché of the times. In fact, in the recent George Clooney film Up in the Air, one character's live-in boyfriend breaks up with her by text-message while she's flying around the country with Clooney.
But now, there's finally a cell phone application for grownups. It's for taxes -- and it's here just in time for the stack of W2s, 1099s, and 1098s that are about to start hitting your mailbox. Imagine if filing your taxes were as easy as this:
1. Snap a picture of your W2 with your iPhone camera.
2. Answer some questions about interest and unemployment income, and the like.
3. Review your information and e-file directly from your phone.
Of course, there are a couple of catches. (Aren't there always when it comes to taxes?)
1. You have to have an iPhone. The app's optical character recognition software works best on newer "3GS" iPhones with more sensitive camera lenses.
2. You have to live in California. The manufacturer considers this year's rollout to be a "beta test" and plans to make more states available next year.
3. Most important, you have to file a 1040-EZ -- the very simplest form available.
That third "catch" is the real killer. Like it or not, complexity is what creates tax-saving opportunities. No "smart phone" is smart enough to keep up with new and ever-changing tax breaks for buying new cars or new homes, financing your children's college tuition, or building your business. Sometimes the strong lure of technology is not always the answer to planning your businesses future.
Tim Pinkelman, CPA
Accounting Center & Tax Services, Inc.
Two Locations – Temperance MI & Maumee OH
419-882-9255 or 734-847-0400
http://www.accounting-centers.com/
“We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.” H.L. Mencken
====================================
Change the World
====================================
Maybe you have seen:
“Please consider the environment before printing out this email” at the bottom of emails. I just started noticing it late last year and some very quick research lead me to a book printed in 2004 called “Change the World for a Fiver”. Lots of great tips mostly for the home and individual and this is classic LEAN – eliminating waste. Eliminating waste one tiny step at a time is a never-ending project with huge impact for business by reducing cost to your organization.
Even though Kermit the Frog says “It Ain’t easy being Green”, when you start small, it can be quite infectious. Where to start?
1. Turn off equipment when it's not being used.
2. Encourage communications by email, and read email messages.
3. Turn out lights when you leave a room.
4. Produce double-sided documents whenever possible.
5. Do not leave taps dripping (Okay, this is old – my older sister won a science fair project on the leaky faucet in 1964!)
6. Print drafts on the backside of scrap paper.
7. Find a supply of paper with maximum available recycled content.
8. Choose suppliers who take back packaging for reuse.
9. Take your own bags everywhere.
10. Recycle. Just about everything has a second or third life.
Next week: an interview with my favorite recyclers!
Copyright 2009 Linda Fayerweather
What's working in your Business?
Changing Lanes LLC
http://www.changinglanes.biz/
====================================
Cell Phone and Taxes
====================================
If you have teenagers at home, you've probably marveled at how they can sit for hours with their cell phones, texting away in a language that looks like it was designed specifically to shut you out. Kids these days (and some adults, too) have built their lives around cell phones and text messaging. It's fast becoming a cliché of the times. In fact, in the recent George Clooney film Up in the Air, one character's live-in boyfriend breaks up with her by text-message while she's flying around the country with Clooney.
But now, there's finally a cell phone application for grownups. It's for taxes -- and it's here just in time for the stack of W2s, 1099s, and 1098s that are about to start hitting your mailbox. Imagine if filing your taxes were as easy as this:
1. Snap a picture of your W2 with your iPhone camera.
2. Answer some questions about interest and unemployment income, and the like.
3. Review your information and e-file directly from your phone.
Of course, there are a couple of catches. (Aren't there always when it comes to taxes?)
1. You have to have an iPhone. The app's optical character recognition software works best on newer "3GS" iPhones with more sensitive camera lenses.
2. You have to live in California. The manufacturer considers this year's rollout to be a "beta test" and plans to make more states available next year.
3. Most important, you have to file a 1040-EZ -- the very simplest form available.
That third "catch" is the real killer. Like it or not, complexity is what creates tax-saving opportunities. No "smart phone" is smart enough to keep up with new and ever-changing tax breaks for buying new cars or new homes, financing your children's college tuition, or building your business. Sometimes the strong lure of technology is not always the answer to planning your businesses future.
Tim Pinkelman, CPA
Accounting Center & Tax Services, Inc.
Two Locations – Temperance MI & Maumee OH
419-882-9255 or 734-847-0400
http://www.accounting-centers.com/
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