Waste and its Impact on the Customer

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The waste in any organization can usually be traced back to 3 main sources:

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• Slow speed

• Quality issues and performing re-work to satisfy customer needs

• Doing activities that do not matter and do not add value in the eyes of the customer

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These same factors are often also the causes for customer dissatisfaction.

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The various forms of waste from the perspective of Lean and Lean Six Sigma

 

The TIMWOODI wastes found in organizations are as follows:

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• Transportation - too much transportation of documents, components, equipment etc

• Inventory - too much cash tied up in stock, high work-in-progress leading to long cycle times

• Motion - unnecessary motion or movement of people, resources, data etc

• Waiting - due to delays, queuing or bottlenecks which increase lead time impacting speed of delivery and customer satisfaction

• Over-Production - over-providing value or information which is not required by the customer

• Over-Processing – processes with too numerous hand-offs or approval steps

• Defects - re-work due to quality issues, handling customer complaints that could have been avoided

• Intelligence – lack of teamwork, marginal motivation of workforce, employees putting effort into things that do not matter, management not providing a sense of direction to the workforce