Eliminate the 8 Wastes through Lean Thinking
It doesn't take a superhero to identify and eliminate the 8 wastes in your organization's processes, but bringing a continuous improvement mindset to work each day provides a comparable impact. This mindset is a core tenet of every successful Lean operating system.
There are three primary categories of work:
Value-added: time spent performing the work of the process that the customer is willing to pay for. Value is seen from the eyes of not only the external customer, but also internal customers, anybody who touches the product/service downstream
Non-value-added (But Required): time spent on activities that isn’t value-added in the eyes of the customer, but necessary for the organization to stay in business and in compliance of laws and regulations. While it’s not possible to eliminate many of these tasks, there are always ways to complete the work more efficiently.
Waste: any action, task, process or product that adds time and cost without adding value as determined by the customer.
- It’s essential for upstream operators to catch waste before it is passed downstream. This practice protects the external customer and shows respect for internal customers, creating a collaborative, continuously flowing process.
Lean manufacturing and service companies often discover that over 60% of work activities are pure waste in the eyes of the customer!
If you are unfamiliar with the 8 wastes, the acronym DOWNTIME is helpful to remember each one and to teach this topic to others
Inspiring everyone on your teams to identify and eliminate waste in their area daily is a great way to foster a continuous improvement culture. For frontline workers, they are the subject matter experts and will likely have great improvement ideas.
Please feel free to use the template below to get started.
