Stopping Business Value From Wasting Away

It is always a good to reassess your value to not just your business but also to your customers from time to time. Value can mean different things to different people and it is very important that you know what value means to your customers and how it is shown in each transaction. Cost, availability and service are all important components of value.

But whatever value is and whatever the customer values; the opposite is going to be waste. Whatever does not bring any value to the customer on the final product is going to be waste. Now, you will never be able to fully eliminate waste, but you can do a good job of eliminating much of it. Waste is going to be any activity that doesn't add any value to your customer. That is where you start to look.

Exposing common waste practices are everywhere in every production and employment environment. If you learn to spot these areas, you can stop the unnecessary resource bleeding. Overproduction is a big waste problem area. It not only creates non productive time for employees, takes up valuable storage space and requires excessive money.

With the continued rise in transportation costs, this area can become a waste problem also. If you eliminate the product process distance, you can reduce your waste. Undue and unnecessarily moving things just out of reach will only waste. This is usually caused by adding more steps to the process such as from one location to another location and then back to its original location before processing begins. This is a huge waste area and can cause unplanned disruptions.

Excess stock is pretty much self explanatory. When you have too much inventory, not only do you have to pay to make it, but you have to have a place to store it. The costs all add up. The same goes with unnecessary motion, or double handling. Moving things multiple times is a waste in labor and time. The last great waste, but maybe the most important is mistakes and defects. Each mistake costs time and labor and defects are even worse because they make it all the way to the customer.

Any business will get help from one or more of the various levels of Six sigma certification. Look over Six sigma and you will soon see that they are the leader in business innovation.