7 Wastes - Transportation

And so we come to the final chapter of the series about the 7 wastes of LEAN. The series has been from the observations of my life, often about golf and very often from the perspective of the grumpy old man I realise I am becoming. (We all become our fathers in the end, but that's a story for another time)

Transportation, as you can see from the diagram above, comes under the wastes of moving materials. The movement of office materials, manufacturing materials and so forth. Golfers, believe it or not, are generally fairly efficient on this point. I mean most golfers take their clubs with them round the course; it is not usual to leave the clubs near the first tee and wander back to them to select a club for each shot.

I was doing some analysis at an aerospace company a few years ago and we were looking at the possibility of an automated, digitised drawing system to keep all engineering drawings on line. Although CAD was being used the reprographics store was where all drawings were kept after being printed, with wet ink signatures showing sign off. The system they had worked fine, but it hit the mark for so many of the wastes of LEAN it beggered belief:

1. Motion: The highly paid aerospace engineers had to go to request the drawing from reprographics they needed
2. Waiting time: They could wait for 15 minutes, at least 4 times per day to get the drawings they wanted.... that is 1 hour every day.
3. Defects: They often, and I mean very frequently, did not get exactly the drawing they needed and had to go and request another
4. Over production: To avoid 3) they requested too many drawings, meaning over work for the reprographics staff and more 2) for their colleagues
5. Transportation: The travel time back to everyone's desk was rediculous... the drawing office was not on the same floor as the reprographics office.

Needless to say, a new system was justified but it was not easy to overcome the culture of "but we've always done it this way" leading to change resistance.

Nearly every office I go in has the same issues. I often work in public sector organisations and one just this week told me that they have had LEAN delivered to their office and that they could not possibly be more efficient. At the same time it transpired that they only have 1 credit card reader, held on a different floor to where they interview clients, have to go to the other floor with the client to take payments and very often have to queue to do it.

In an era where we are having to deliver services with fewer resources, it really is a time to have a fresh look at how these services are being delivered, look at the wastes in the business and be aware of where they can be eradicated. It really does come down to process change, whether you call it LEAN, BPR, Process improvement or the next jargon buzz word, just realise that carrying on in the same way will always lead to the same outcomes.