This article explains the Seven Wastes of Lean Office – application of lean to office environments.
Remembering that work that adds no value to the customer is how Waste is defined in Lean Thinking. Given that, there’s a lot of Waste in the office. Indeed, some estimate that a significant percentage of total administrative costs is Waste as it is defined in Lean Thinking.
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Transportation
Movement of product that does not add value
- Transporting material or documents farther than necessary, or temporarily locating, filing, stocking, stacking, or moving materials, people, information, paper – wastes time and effort.
Inventory
More material information than the customer needs
- Excess stock – more than is needed or wanted.
- Unnecessary copies, extra supplies (more than is needed – beyond some safety buffer.
Motion
Bodily or mental motion that does not add value
- Unnecessary work movements or extra motion to complete a task is waste.
Waiting
Idle time when people, material, information, or equipment is not ready
- Waiting for anything – people, paper, machines, the FAX machine, copier, information.
- Anything that causes a workflow to stop.
Overprocessing
Effort that does not add value from the customer’s perspective
- Unnecessary processing of anything increases wastes, energy use, potential human bodily harm, and can impact morale
- Redundant steps – checking someone else’s work, obtaining multiple signatures, or excessive reviews
- The Annual Employee Review can be added to this; a more effective review is a weekly or daily – short feedback loops allows for learning and growth; annual employee reviews are largely unhelpful to the reviewer and the reviewee.
Overproduction
Producing more than the customer needs or wants
- Extra of anything takes up valuable office space and wastes raw materials – paper, attention, etc.
Defects
- Having to do anything over because it wasn’t done right the first time is waste
The office pc or workstation can become a huge source of waste in overprocessing. We can over-automate or over-computerize our daily work with excessive programs that perform overlapping functions or excessive use of software for tasks that can be simplified or humanized.
Typing an email to several different people in several different ways when we can make one phone call to suffice for all parties.
Or programming macro scripts for tasks that don’t need necessitate the complication or organization for doing so.