In this economy how many of us have heard an employer who said "we are seeing a decline in revenue, so we have to cut overhead." Overhead to them means that they need to cut personnel. The difficulty in this scenario is that the employer is functioning as if the human capital is still an expense rather then a non-owned asset which possesses the totality of the knowledge of the base of their operations. There is a better way to control costs and not decrease the knowledge assets of your operations.
Every organization, no matter what their size, has in plain sight hidden wastes that are draining dollars from the revenue stream because you have not looked for them. Let's look at some of those waste areas and some of the examples of the waste categories:
Vendors
Do your vendors delivery their services when they say they are going to? When the invoice arrives are their overcharges? Are your customers unhappy with the services received? Do they promise one thing and delivery it another way? Do your vendors cause certain things to happen which increase your expense but were never requested or ordered?
Over-processing
Does your organization really listen to what the client wants or do you assume you know what the client wants and act accordingly? Remember the voice of the customer dictates what you get paid for. Does your standard operating procedures have you doing the same process in several different departments between the receipt of the order and the delivery of services?
Transportation
By this we are not necessarily referring to moving household goods or equipment. We are suggesting that you are adding to your expenses through the unnecessary movement of materials and information in your operations.
Motion
Every operation is guilty of this one. In order to complete a process does the employee have to walk all the way across the office to get what they need in the way of supplies or to complete a part of the final report. For instance is the copier half way to the exit instead of in close proximity to the work areas? Even more prevalent do you really need all that data production. How many of you have reams of reports that are just sitting on a shelf and have never been used?
Inventory
This does not mean product inventory, this refers to an oversupply of forms and requests from clients which are sitting on someone's desk waiting action. Is there an excess of wait time for answers or to process a form?
Waiting
In HR and relocation we know that time is of the essence in order to keep a client happy. But, how often do you have to wait for an answer? How many times does it take five levels of management to get a simple answer that the line employee directly dealing with the client may have been able to handle at the time of the request. How many times have the needs of a client not been met due to SOP?
Defects
No matter which side of the desk you are on, how many times have you received reports with missing information or incomplete data? How many times have you received reports with missing required pages?
Talent
Look at your employee base and their schedule. How often during the day do they find that they are sitting idle because of having to wait for a report to get to their desk so they can proceed with the project they are working on? How often do you find that you are either short staff or over staffed to do the work you have in front of you?
Each and everyone of these examples are introducing waste into your daily operations. Waste corresponds to less funds to run the operations with. The six sigma methodology created by Motorola teaches us to look for these wastes that are in plain sight. They are not visible because we have not taken the time to look for them. Take the time and see what extra operating dollars you just might have at your disposal and just did not realize was there.
Every organization, no matter what their size, has in plain sight hidden wastes that are draining dollars from the revenue stream because you have not looked for them. Let's look at some of those waste areas and some of the examples of the waste categories:
Vendors
Do your vendors delivery their services when they say they are going to? When the invoice arrives are their overcharges? Are your customers unhappy with the services received? Do they promise one thing and delivery it another way? Do your vendors cause certain things to happen which increase your expense but were never requested or ordered?
Over-processing
Does your organization really listen to what the client wants or do you assume you know what the client wants and act accordingly? Remember the voice of the customer dictates what you get paid for. Does your standard operating procedures have you doing the same process in several different departments between the receipt of the order and the delivery of services?
Transportation
By this we are not necessarily referring to moving household goods or equipment. We are suggesting that you are adding to your expenses through the unnecessary movement of materials and information in your operations.
Motion
Every operation is guilty of this one. In order to complete a process does the employee have to walk all the way across the office to get what they need in the way of supplies or to complete a part of the final report. For instance is the copier half way to the exit instead of in close proximity to the work areas? Even more prevalent do you really need all that data production. How many of you have reams of reports that are just sitting on a shelf and have never been used?
Inventory
This does not mean product inventory, this refers to an oversupply of forms and requests from clients which are sitting on someone's desk waiting action. Is there an excess of wait time for answers or to process a form?
Waiting
In HR and relocation we know that time is of the essence in order to keep a client happy. But, how often do you have to wait for an answer? How many times does it take five levels of management to get a simple answer that the line employee directly dealing with the client may have been able to handle at the time of the request. How many times have the needs of a client not been met due to SOP?
Defects
No matter which side of the desk you are on, how many times have you received reports with missing information or incomplete data? How many times have you received reports with missing required pages?
Talent
Look at your employee base and their schedule. How often during the day do they find that they are sitting idle because of having to wait for a report to get to their desk so they can proceed with the project they are working on? How often do you find that you are either short staff or over staffed to do the work you have in front of you?
Each and everyone of these examples are introducing waste into your daily operations. Waste corresponds to less funds to run the operations with. The six sigma methodology created by Motorola teaches us to look for these wastes that are in plain sight. They are not visible because we have not taken the time to look for them. Take the time and see what extra operating dollars you just might have at your disposal and just did not realize was there.
