By Thomas D. McBride
Partners for
Creative Solutions, Inc.
Several methodologies exist to help organizations eliminate waste. Just-In-Time (JIT) and Lean Manufacturing have been highly successful on the factory floor and have been heavily developed over several decades. Others, including Total Quality Management (TQM) and Reengineering, have been effective across a broader range of environments. For offices and other non-manufacturing areas, I prefer a hybrid approach that combines the best tools of several methodologies. This two-part article outlines a process that has been applied successfully in numerous environments.
The effectiveness of this or any process will depend heavily on the readiness of the organization. An organization that supports continuous improvement and teamwork, has developed a high level of trust, and is skilled in the use of kaizen events, will be prepared to achieve great success. (A Kaizen event is a high intensity attack by a team on a significant area of organizational waste and is usually reserved for those few opportunities providing the greatest benefit to the organization.)
Part I addresses the "discovery" stage.
Find the waste - Look for what is consistently causing "pain" or is limiting the organization. The focus can also be on dollars (sales, profits, margins, inventory, cost of quality), performance (lead times, on-time delivery), processes, or how people spend their time.
Measure the waste - The objective is to accurately define the magnitude of waste that currently exists. Numerous tools are available to facilitate this step, including fish-bone diagrams, process analysis flow charts, the 5-Why technique, personal work analysis charts, and many others.
Pareto analysis - This charting technique is used to visually apply the "80/20 rule" to identify the larger areas of waste.
Narrow the focus - Select and focus on the "critical few" areas that would provide the greatest benefit to your business.
Dig deeper - Within the "critical few", dig deeper until the major contributors to waste have been found and quantified. Continue digging deeper until satisfied that the major root causes have been identified and quantified. A root cause is something on which you can take action to solve the problem.
Assign root causes - Develop a quantified list of causes requiring solutions.
Upon reaching this point in the process the team will have a valuable understanding of current conditions. Our next issue will address how to develop and implement solutions.
Summer 2001 - Volume 11, Number 3