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The 7 Hidden Wastes

We identify the key pressure points, there is normally more than one, that need to be resolved to get the maximum results in the shortest time.

We do this by examining your business, from customer enquiry right through to after-sales and service provision to gain what we term a "helicopter view" of what you are providing and contrast this with what your customers want and this view helps us identify the key pressure points. 

At the pressure points we are looking for signs and symptoms of the "7 Hidden Wastes", which exist in every type of business and we set about working with you and your staff to remove these pressure points.

The "7 Hidden Wastes" are part of the Lean Thinking principles we use as our guide for complete transformations.
 
So how do we get to from waste removal to increasing your profit and increasing your customer satisfaction?

With the "7 Hidden Wastes" removed

• you'll be getting more output from the same resources - normally 40% more! are you ready for the upturn?

• customer enquiries, orders and service issues are completed quicker - from around 25% or more faster than the existing time. How many more customers could you attract with a faster service?
  

• you'll be using less space for your work - normally 35% less!

• Management Information to control your business costs and maximise your profits is available everyday in minutes

• employee engagement is increased - employees  contribute improvement ideas
  

• forecasting and scheduling problems disappear
  

• you have more customers, who buy more often

The "7 Hidden Wastes"

The "7 Hidden Wastes" can be found in the processes and activities in use in every department and every organisation every day, from Manufacturing to Service companies, from blue chips to start-ups.

In no particular order, as their impact is different for every type of business, they are;

• (Over) Processing - failing to understand what your customers value in the product and service you provide and will pay for. This includes conducting unnecessary activities and processes that don't add value to the paying customer.

• Waiting - for materials or job specifications to arrive, paperwork to be processed, sign off decisions to be made, reports to be published, weekly & monthly meetings to take place.

• Producing Failures - producing rejects, poor & duplicate date entry, reworking materials, re-working reports, re-working management information etc

• Building Inventory - Work In Progress stored at workstations, untouched files & papers on desks, e-mail backlogs, storing work until there is "enough" to do, all slow responses to the customer.

• Over Production - beating Service Level Agreements or building finished stocks & products that haven't been ordered by any customers yet!

• Motion - walking to the post room, copier, stores, tool area, switching between different software systems, having to use excessive keystrokes or having to go through set screens on the software (whether you want to or not)

• Transportation - moving work between offices, departments, workstations, factories and into queues all creates waste. 

Waste Examples

We can't put all the examples of waste we've found under each of the 7 categories, however here are two examples;

Photocopiers

In fact this is true for any type of shared office facility (colour printers, fax machines, shredders, storage etc). We often find that such types of equipment are put wherever they will fit, in a corner out of the way, with little consideration to the staff who use them the most. Tracking who uses it and how often means we can begin to put a cost on the position of the equipment and whether this can be reduced by moving the position or buying/leasing other equipment.

Call Centres

Ever rung a call centre and been asked several times for your account number or address, even when you may have entered it via the phone keypad?

What about when the operator asks you to hold because the "system" is slow today or the computer has crashed?

In both cases poor software design is causing waste, in the first the operator has to re-enter your details, in the second they are often cycling through screens that they don't want to get to the one that solves your problem.

Now imagine that same waste being repeated on 1,000's of calls, every day.