Organizations, large or small, typically go through a series of steps as they deliver products, services or some sort of value to their customers. These steps could be a value chain that spans several divisions, each area contributing in some manner towards an end result. Or at the team-level, the steps could be a process followed by them to deliver some manner of value to a customer, or a finished component or product to another team.
The question, however, is whether this can be done better…
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Think of what you do as you create value for your customers, consider how you do it day-to-day and ask yourself: Are we efficient enough? Are we doing too much? Are we doing too little? Is each step necessary?
You’re not the first one to ask yourself this, and neither will you be the last, so let’s take a quick glance at one way of finding some answers: Lean.
Lean is an approach that comprises of a set of practices and principles to improve efficiency by eliminating waste.
By this definition, any activity that consumes resources, but isn’t creating business value or customer value can be considered to be waste. Over several decades, originating from the Toyota Production System (TPS) and subsequently refined by many others, several types of waste have been clearly characterized and are generally applicable no matter the industry – manufacturing, healthcare, information technology, education… you name it.
Let’s dig deeper, with a series of basic examples that you can try and use to draw parallels with what you do:
Defects
Whether in the form of a software bug, a slip of a hand, or a manufacturing fault, defects can cause significant re-work or even have you discard an end product, depending on when they are caught. This type of waste occurs due to manual error, issues with a process or equipment, environmental factors and more.
Overproduction
Continually adding features or products not demanded or required by customers, excessive production that will not be sold until well into the future, if at all, or consistent mismatches between actual requirements and forecasts, each lead to this waste. This can lead to outcomes such as expired products, unused features or excess material left in inventory.
Waiting
The amount of time between the steps in a process generally tends to be amongst the largest sources of waste. Hand-offs between teams with differing priorities, patients waiting for appointments or test results, or idle workers or machinery, all fit the bill. This can result in a longer time-to-market or lead time, or needless expenses due to idle time.
Non-utilized talent
Situations where highly skilled people perform tasks that simple automation could, or where your teams and talent don’t learn from each other’s know-how, or not involving your users when you build something for them, each account for this type of waste. This can lead to high value activities being delayed, disengaged employees and repetition of mistakes or errors.
Transportation
Unnecessarily long distances when shipping raw materials or finished products, physical documents sent across multiple locations for approvals, or too many hand-offs across teams, all fall under this type of waste. This can occur due to sub-optimal planning or processes, and can lead to longer lead times, additional costs and/or delays.
Inventory
Requiring storage space for excess stock awaiting either consumption or further processing, fixed server capacity that can’t scale down when not being utilized, storage of materials or products created as a result of overproduction are examples of this type of waste. The result is simply the avoidable cost that keeps accumulating and the capital that remains tied up.
Motion
A developer having to go through a convoluted series of apps and steps to test code, a factory worker having to consistently stretch or bend down for tools or materials, a sub-optimal workplace setup resulting in unnecessary movements, each is an example of this type of waste. The resulting unneeded consumption of energy reduces that available for creation of value.
Extra-processing
Unnecessary sequential approvals, doing more than what your customer truly needs, adding inspections rather than correcting processes or tightening up tolerances, all fall under this type of waste. This leads to time invested in activities that don’t provide any tangible value to either a business or its customer.
Are you able to relate to any of this in the work that you do day-to-day? Leveraging Lean can help you optimize how you and your team's work.
Do it right, and you’ll let highly skilled people efficiently work on high value activities… and not on waste, while optimizing costs along the way.
Working with Lean is not a one-time effort, but is a start towards “optimizing the whole” through continuous improvement. As you begin, your focus should be on optimizing the value you deliver and on reducing waste.
Coucal can help your organization improve your efficiency through Lean and Value Stream Mapping workshops that can map out how your organization delivers value, and help highlight waste. An expert selection of techniques that can be tailored to suit your organization can then help you eliminate waste and focus on value.
Leaders, managers and teams can leverage customized workshops that zoom-in or zoom-out to let all levels in your organization eliminate waste and be Lean as you focus on delivering value to your customers.
At Coucal, our approach to delivering value is helping our customers achieve outcomes over outputs. Along with the outcomes from the workshops, we provide a toolbox of practices and techniques that ensure you and your organization can continue working towards successfully and quickly delivering value to your customers.
Connect with our experts to set up a workshop that suits your needs.
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