Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, 5S for the Office (190-slide PowerPoint presentation). The office, by any name, is a paperwork factory. To become a Lean enterprise, office activities must fully support shop-floor manufacturing operations to eliminate waste. The adoption of 5S throughout all office functions is the first step to increase efficiency. 5S principles are dedicated to [read more]
This discussion relates to both Lean and Supply Chain Excellence. Why Supply Chain Excellence? Well, many activities, including customer service (for example, quotation processing, order processing etc); all planning, procurement, and purchasing; quality assurance; administrative warehousing and distribution functions; and many other activities take place in offices.
Most businesses regard lean manufacturing almost exclusively as a set of production tools and techniques. Most businesses who implement lean manufacturing fail to achieve the full benefit of this strategy because the office and administration areas are not included in any kaizen / continuous improvement activities.
If you think lean is about the factory floor only, then remember that typically 60% to 80% of all costs associated with a product line are non-production costs.
A couple of examples to highlight the wastes in the office areas…
An industrial air handling units manufacturing company – the quotation process used to take 4 weeks and had 55 steps and what this meant was losing valuable customer orders to competition. After a brief introduction on value & waste and process mapping, I asked them to list all the 55 steps on sticky notes. Upon challenging every step and classifying those steps as 1) value Adding (green), 2) Non-Value adding (red) and 3) Non-Value Adding but required (orange), the team ended up with roughly 50% of the steps which fell in to green and orange categories. What this meant was that, the no of steps reduced to 30 and the time in quotation processing reduced to 2 weeks!
A Printing Company – From the time a customer order was received and until it was converted in to a production order and passed on to manufacturing, they had 32 steps.
A similar process as above, reduced the number of steps to 18 and time halved!
Also, how many times have you searched for a saved file on your computer and how long did it take to find it? Can we manager our e-records better? The answer is “Yes!”
It is all about learning how to stabilize, standardize, and simplify administrative processes using the power of the Toyota Production System (TPS).
So, what is a Lean Office?
Processes are controlled
Processes are standardized
Processes are improved upon
Processes are made as visual as possible
5S is practiced!
Let’s understand what the wastes are in an office environment.
Overproduction – producing work prior to it being required is waste and is the greatest of all the wastes
Producing reports no one reads or needs
Making extra copies
E-mailing, faxing same document
Entering repetitive information on multiple documents
Ineffective meetings
Waiting – for people, signatures, and information is waste. This is “low hanging fruit” which is easy to reach and ripe for the taking.
Excessive signatures or approvals
Dependency of others to complete tasks
Delays in receiving information
Computer program revision problems
Cross-departmental resource commitments
Not a priority for someone to complete
Motion – any movement of people, paper, electronic exchanges that does not add value is waste
Searching for computer files
Searching for documents in file cabinets
Repeatedly reviewing manuals for information
Hand carrying paper to another process
Cross-departmental resource commitments
Not a priority for someone to complete
Transport – affects the time of delivery of any work within an office
Delivering unneeded documents
Excessive filing of work documents
Over-addressed email distribution lists
Hand-carrying paper to another process
Cross-departmental resource commitments
Mis-prioritization
Excessive processing – putting more work or effort into the work required by internal or external customers is waste
Duplicative reports or information
Repetitive data entry
Incorrect information being shared
Constantly revising documents
Ineffective meetings and no agendas
Duplicative documentation
Lack of accurate project planning
Inventory (Time) – work piles, excessive supplies, and excessive signature requirements are waste
Files awaiting signatures or approvals
Work awaiting task completion by others
Obsolete files
Obsolete office equipment
Not sufficient training of back-ups
Purchasing excessive office supplies.
Defects (or Mistakes) – refers to all processing required creating a defect or mistake and the additional work required to correct it
Data entry errors
Pricing errors
Forwarding incomplete documentation
Incorrect information on document
Inefficient file system on PC or in cabinet
Not appropriate staffing to service customer
Underutilization of People – is a result of not placing people where they can (and will) use their knowledge, skills, and abilities to the fullest (8th Waste)
Project deadlines not being met.
Work loads not evenly balanced due to lack of cross-training
High absenteeism and turnover
Inadequate performance management system
Incomplete job skill assessment prior to hiring
Now that we have understood what may be the wasted efforts in our office environment, let’s take steps to minimise or eliminate the same and increase the value to our customers.
[NOTE: Our Lean Office presentation has been trusted by an array of prestigious organizations, including industry leaders such as Apple, DHL, Cummins, Stryker, Avery Dennison, Volvo Cars, Baker Tilly, Viasat, Rubix, Techaerospace, Pacific Helmets, BBA, to name just a few.]
Transform your office [read more]
Do You Want to Implement Business Best Practices?
You can download in-depth presentations on Lean Office and 100s of management topics from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.
For even more best practices available on Flevy, have a look at our top 100 lists:
These best practices are of the same as those leveraged by top-tier management consulting firms, like McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Accenture. Improve the growth and efficiency of your organization by utilizing these best practice frameworks, templates, and tools. Most were developed by seasoned executives and consultants with over 20+ years of experience.
Readers of This Article Are Interested in These Resources
This is an excellent role play activity to take the participants through a simulation exercise of Quotation Process to identify office wastes.
Typical roles:
Customer (C) - who wants a quote
Sales Person (SP) - attends to customer requirements / phones
Sales Administrator (SA) - [read more]
This introductory training material explains how Lean tools and techniques could be applied to all office and admin areas to reduce non-vale added processes and improve efficiency.
It comes with 118 slides and a simulation exercise with further 16 slides.
The topics covered are:
Intro to [read more]
Kaizen strategy is the single most important concept in Japanese management - the key to successful Japanese companies such as Toyota. Kaizen, which simply means continuous improvement, is the foundation for all Lean improvements. Kaizen events are opportunities to make focused changes in the [read more]
This discussion relates to both Lean and Supply Chain Excellence. Why Supply Chain Excellence? Well, many activities, including customer service (for example, quotation processing, order processing etc); all planning, procurement, and purchasing; quality assurance; administrative warehousing and distribution functions; and many other activities take place in offices.
