One of the deadly wastes that is eating up the profitability of your business is wasted movement.
Wasted movement leads to wasted time, energy, and possible damage to your products or injury to your employees.
The last time I attended a conference downtown, I parked in the city’s parking garage next to the convention center.
When you pull up to the gate, you need to push a big button on the ticket machine, pull your ticket, then drive your car forward about four feet to give the same ticket and advance payment to the attendant.
While I was waiting in line, I frequently saw cars pull staight up to the attendant. The attendant would then get out of the booth, squeeze past the car, push the button, return to the booth, and complete the transaction.
Do you see some wasted movement in this scenario?
My first thought was “Why have the button-pushing-ticket-dispenser if the customer has to always talk to the attendant?”
If you look hard enough, you’ll probably find similar wasted motion and time in your business. People will be doing something a certain way just because that is the way it has always been done.
To the outside observer, your business processes may seem as absurd as my parking garage example.
Take some time to audit your processes and see where you can find some easy things to change. Your business will, in turn, run smoother, and your customers will be processed faster.
Mura! – Eliminate Waste.
You know, there’s almost always a transition time between the old processes and the new. A lag between the marginally less efficient past and the incrementally better future. The trick is, hiding that lag from your customer. It’s hard to believe these toll booth folks didn’t think this through.
A management consultation / former teacher of mine told me he always suggested 3 things in his consulting gigs:
- Reduce bottlenecks
- Reduce redundancy
- Eliminate wasted movement
Nice post! Thanks –
Glenn Friesen
Impact Learning Systems | Customer Service Training
@Glenn – nice point about the lag between processes. Thinking things through from the customer’s perspective should help highlight any lag that needs to be addressed and can be solved before impacting others.
Sound advice here. More importantly, (and much harder to do) it’s essential to create a culture of continuous improvement in your organization.
Elimination of wastes and continuous improvement is the backbone of lean production and the TPS. Creating that type of culture can take years, but I think it’s definitely worth the effort.
@Tim – thanks for mentioning continuous improvement. That is so key to identifying waste and fixing it within a company. You’re right in that it takes a while to create that type of culture but the reward is worth it.