SM4.4 How to Reduce Waste in Offices and Service Industries
Most improvement is an incremental process. “Kaizen” is a Japanese word for incremental improvement. Most people think of the removal of waste occurring only on the factory floor. Waste can also occur in Office Operations; administration, human resources, sales & marketing. Experts report that Office Operations waste is at a higher level than waste on the factory […]
SM4.1 Eight Types of Waste
The well-known Toyota car company identified seven types of waste that had an impact on Productivity and Profit. An eighth has been added more recently. By gradually reducing these wastes, you can improve the Productivity and Profit of your business. In Japanese, this is referred to as reducing “muda” (pronounced Moo-da). This article discusses how these types of waste might show up in […]
SM4.3 Prioritising Waste Removal
Any waste removal project will identify literally hundreds of instances of waste. There is a serious risk that such a vast quantity of information will overwhelm the business operator’s ability to manage it in the best interests of the business. We need to discuss ways to identify the most important wastes to remove first.
This is a Yellow Belt article.
SM4.2 Capturing Waste in the Wild
Once you get on the trail of waste out in the wilds of your production system (service, retail or manufacturing), you are going to find literally hundreds of examples of waste. It’s too much to hold in your head so you need a simple way to find, measure it and record it for later prioritised removal. This is a yellow belt approach to these tasks. It is the second article in this series on waste.