There are so many men who can figure costs, and so few who can measure values.
Unknown
What is Waste?
There is one massive idea in the world of process improvement. It is the idea of waste. The idea springs from this thought:
Everything an organisation does should be for its customers, the people who pay the bill. Consequently, all actions fall into one of two camps, either they are:
- Valuable: They are something a customer is happy to pay for.
- Wasteful: They are something a customer doesn’t want to pay for.
This is such a big idea because it makes process improvement simple. Your operations will be perfect if you stop doing all the wasteful stuff. The only problem with this is that it is a struggle to see what is wasteful and what isn’t. The idea challenges a whole host of management ideas and preconceptions. You will need to look at the world through different glasses to see the waste.
The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking.
Albert Einstein
The Waste Glasses
Waste can be categorised into eight different forms. The mnemonic TIM WOODS is a way of remembering them. The forms of waste are called: Transport, Intellect, Motion, Waiting, Over-Production, Over-Processing, Defects, and Stock. Imagine you are going on holiday with TIM WOODS, a short jaunt overseas to the sun to bring the concept to life.
Transport
Transport is the unnecessary movement of materials or information. On your holiday trip, you have to drive north to get to the airport before you can fly south. But it doesn’t stop there. You typed all your details into the online booking system when you booked. Yet when you got to the airport to check in, they asked you precisely the same questions. Then they typed them into a system again, double keying the information. Another example of transport includes the waiter in the restaurant. He carries plates backwards and forwards from the kitchen all day.
You are thinking to yourself that that was all helpful activity, but was it? Did you want to pay for it? At McDonald’s, the server walks no more than two meters from where he picks up the food until he hands it over. At Yo Sushi, there are no waiters; the food comes to you on a conveyor belt.
Intellect
During the trip, you meet many different people: passport control, bag scanners, check-in assistants, air hostesses, and luggage handlers. Almost to a man, they have one thing in common; they look bored. Some of these people have degrees in modern languages and mechanical engineering. Some of these people are first-class cooks at home. Some of these people write computer code as a hobby. They all have some talent, but how much of it do they use? How much intellect do they channel into their work? They all realise how broken the process of flying abroad is. Yet nobody has challenged them to make it better.
There are hard costs associated with the waste of intellect; not just missed opportunities. These costs show up as staff attrition and absence.
Motion
There is a fine line between wasted transport and wasted motion. Wasted motion is the movements people undertake while doing their work, whilst transport is the movement of things.
On the way through the x-ray machine, you put all your belongings into a tray. A man spends his entire day bending down, picking up trays. He then walks from one end of the x-ray machine to the other to put them back at the start. It doesn’t have to be that way. In another airport, the security team put the trays on rollers. They roll back to the beginning. It isn’t just the trays, though. Wasted motion is everywhere: The way your bag is lifted onto the conveyor. The way it is stacked in the plane. The way that the air hostess keeps bending down for the water on her trolley (that everybody wants). These costs show up as wasted staff time and energy.
Waiting
Waiting is the killer. Sorry if I am insulting your intelligence by spelling this one out. Have you ever wondered why you have to check in 2 hours before flying? Or why you:
- Wait for the train to the airport
- Wait to check-in
- Wait to buy a coffee
- Wait to go through security
- Wait at passport control
- Wait for the plane to board
- Wait to taxi to the runway
- Wait for the bus at the other end to take you to the terminal
- Wait (again) at passport control
- Wait to collect your hire car.
Companies think of waiting as time-saving. If customers wait, then staff are fully utilised. But if you look at the total system, there is so much opportunity in all that waiting. Wouldn’t you fly more often if you could just turn up and get on the plane?
Over-Production
People love to have stuff “just in case”. Once you have started something, it seems to make sense to carry on, to get the economies of scale.
At the airport (whilst waiting) you go to the shop to buy a newspaper and a bottle of water. The shop has an offer, “3 for 2”, on mineral water. You think to yourself, “Looks like a good deal; I’ll get two extra bottles.” Why is this wasteful? Two reasons:
- First, you end up carrying the water around with you
- Second, you will find it in the bottom of your bag and throw it down the drain.
The company that sold you the water thinks it is excellent, but how much cash and effort have they invested in stock? How much stock do they end up throwing away? At least it was cheap.
Over-Processing
The second “over” waste is the waste of over-processing. Over-processing is doing more than is necessary (and not making more than is required). At its most superficial level, this is checking that you have your passport five times before leaving the house. Over-processing is everywhere. Assume you take the train to the airport.
- First, you buy a ticket. The man at the counter checks you have the right one.
- Then you have your ticket checked at the barrier to get onto the platform.
- Then you get on the train, where somebody will check your ticket
- Finally, at the other end, you walk through another ticket barrier. With another man to check your ticket.
Some railways even have “revenue protection officers” and ticket inspectors. They can issue fines if you don’t have a ticket. Of course, they have to check your ticket before doing that.
(I wrote this a few years ago, the railways have caught on, now they invest capital in machines to check your tickets and men in case the machines stop working).
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
Peter F. Drucker
Once that has all happened, people start checking your plane ticket.
Defects
This waste is an obvious one but also comes in many shapes and sizes and can strike without warning:
- The ticket machine has broken, so you can’t pick up your pre-bought ticket.
- The train was late because of a problem with the points.
- The computer doesn’t recognise your booking code at the airport.
- The X-ray machine beeps even though you aren’t carrying metal.
- The bag falls off the conveyor belt and arrives 4 hours late.
The list goes on and on. The worst thing about defects is that they have knock-on effects once they start. They start to spiral out of control. Have you ever had a day when the train was delayed by 20 minutes, and then you missed the plane? How much money do airlines spend moving bags that didn’t show up on carousels to hotels? Where does that money come from? Who do you think pays for the failure, the airline or you?
Stock
We love to hold stock, particularly “safety” stock; it gives us a feeling of reassurance. We even account for stock in a positive way; we see it as an asset, something to be glad of. The problem with stock is that it ties up money and hides poor planning.
At the last stage of your journey, you pick up your rental car. You asked for a band B. Everybody goes for band B. If you book band A, you look like a cheapskate; if you go for band C, you throw money away. Unfortunately, the company doesn’t have any band B’s left, so they upgraded you to a band C. This seems great until you walk through the airport car park. There are cars lined up waiting for the next customer, rows and rows of them. Ask yourself:
- Who is paying for all these cars to sit there?
- Why, with all these cars, didn’t they have the band B that you wanted?
- How often don’t they have a band B?
- How many people are driving around in upgrades?
Finally, how much would you pay for this hire car if they had enough band B’s to go around? Why do they have a car park full of band A’s and C’s that nobody wants to drive?
Linkages
All the different types of waste interlink, over-production creates stock. Stock can lead to waiting. Waiting can cause people’s brains to disengage (intellect). Lack of intellect can cause defects. The solution to Defects is often Over-Processing (quality checking). Don’t get too hung up trying to work out which type of waste you have. The important thing is to recognise waste for what it is and then do something about it.
Homework
This week I’d like you to do a process redesign, find the waste in your processes and work out how to remove it.
- Draw up one of your processes on brown paper on a wall. Maybe the process for booking in new customers or the method for paying a bill.
- Next, examine the process, looking for the different types of waste.
- Work out what you could do to get rid of it. How could you re-jig things to remove the waste?
- Finally, ask yourself how you would feel if you were a customer. Which process would you feel happier about paying for, the new one or the old one?
Look at this video for a detailed explanation of how to run a service improvement workshop.
How to run a service improvement workshop
It takes some courage to try this out, but have a go. You will be amazed at what you find.
Next week we will discuss problem-solving techniques
Thank you for reading.
Related posts:
- Did process improvement really destroy Starbucks? Only a customer can tell you if the process has been improved.
- Remove the waste: A game you can play with your staff. Follow the link at the bottom of the post.
- Clear desks and other management claptrap: What happens if you interpret lean too dogmatically.
Across the web:
- Lean enterprise institute: The lean thinking hub on the web.
- The great process improvement secret: A SlideShare to help you remember the different types of waste.
Further reading:
The Womack and Jones book introduced the idea of lean thinking. If you are even remotely interested in process improvement, this is possibly the one book you should read.
Post Script
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