Nobody likes waste. If an activity wastes our money, we drop it from our schedule. If a person wastes our time and attention, we may re-evaluate the relationship. Life is busy and short, so we can’t afford trading it for something that brings no payoff.
Six Sigma project leaders feel the same way about waste. They define waste as an action or a step in a process that does not add value for the customer.
Project teams can use Lean Six Sigma tools to identify and eliminate waste. Here are four types of waste that can be eliminated and the Lean Six Sigma solutions that go along with them.
Motion
When people are moving it means they are busy, and busyness equals productivity, right? Not really. Don’t fall into the trap of believing that extra walking, reaching or searching is a sign of a robust and efficient process. In fact, it’s usually just the opposite.
When identifying waste, apply the value added standard by asking: does this movement add value to the product or service? Would the customer be willing to pay for it? If not then find a better way.
Solution: Reorganizing the filing and inventory system in an office helps eliminate the wasted motion of employees pawing through inventory and searching through files to find what they need. Remove wasted motion from the production floor by redesigning the workplace layout so that workers have easy access to tools and material they need without leaving their workstations.
Waiting
This sounds harmless, or at its worst no more than annoying. Don’t be fooled – this downtime is a serious waste of capital. The raw material, information and equipment required make your product or service cost money that can’t be recovered while they are waiting for an activity to add value. Paying employees for idle time is one of the greatest wastes in business today.
Solution: Redesign your processes to eliminate bottlenecks and to deliver material and information where it’s needed as quickly as possible. Attend to broken machinery immediately to maintain workflow. Help employees be more productive by not wasting their time with poorly managed and useless meetings.
Unused Employee Talent
Employees who work with the processes every day frequently have the best ideas for improving them. Sadly, management rarely asks for their input. Management that expects little from staff creates the kind of apathy that leads to expensive absenteeism, turnover and poor productivity.
Solution: Organizations can avoid the trap of wasted talent by engaging employees. Engagement can be as simple is providing additional training. However, one of the best ways for engaging employees is to make them part of the project team. This allows you to tap into their process expertise and gives you a chance to teach them how to solve problems using Six Sigma principles.
Inventory
Having materials on hand that you can’t use wastes space and costs money. It also interferes with efficient production.
Solution: Reorganizing work space by ruthlessly purging the obsolete, the unnecessary and the broken clears the clutter. Improving the accuracy of demand forecasts helps you better anticipate customer desire and reduce inventory.
Part 2 – More Wastes
In the second part of this article, we discuss other types of waste (Defects, Overproduction, Transportation and Non-Value Added Processing) and the solutions that Lean Six Sigma can offer.
What are some solutions you have used to reduce waste? Feel free to share them below.
