You are Killing Me!!!

?Watch television for any length of time and you will be flooded with ads for medical solutions to silent ailments that are affecting your lifestyles. I totally get it they are at the pint of being annoying. Take a break and go to work. Wait a minute there is a silent killer in your organization that is directly affecting your livelihood and professional life span, and you are choosing to ignore it like you avoid the ads on the television every night. In both environments the condition is present but unless we go looking for the conditions, we will never know they are present

Stop for a moment and look around your office. I mean really look around your office. Every organization, no matter what your size, has a silent killer present and hidden in their processes, albeit in plain sight. They are a liturgy of activities that we perform every day which meet nobody’s needs and wants. They are truly non-value-added use of our time and energies. They are present but we turn a blind eye to their existence.

Consider this data point. Jay Arthur in his book Free, Perfect and Now states that out every $100 of corporate spend you are wasting $25-$40.? The sad part is that the vast majority of this waste is right under your noses because you have not looked for it. Taiichi Ohno of Toyota suggested originally that every organization was confronted with the existence of seven types of non-value-added activities. Today many have increased the categories to nine. It is the more recent categories that we will cover in this week’s edition.

The Toyota Production System breaks these silent killers down into three broad categories- Muri, Muda and Miri. Muda refers to things that are wasteful or inefficient. The Japanese believe that there are two types of Muda. One is non-value-added activities that are required for the process to continue such as human capital management or finance. The second have absolutely no value to anyone and should be removed.

The second component is Mura or unevenness meaning the presence of variations in the delivery of the process. The final form is Miri which is defined as overburden or too much work. For convenience’s sake most individual lump everything under the term Muda and so will we in this edition.

?Organizational Most Wanted List

Waste type 1: Overproduction

The initial form of waste or MUDA is that of over production. As organizations we tend to create way too much stuff. Whether it is parts on the factory floor or excess paper in the service side of the organization. When was the last time you really looked at your processes and saw steps that made no sense in today’s world? Consider your hiring process where you have an applicant complete and application in the Applicant Tracking System and then have them complete a paper application. This is waste of time when a manager has to be sent this paper application when they just as easily could open it up in the tracking system.

Waste type 2: Waiting

Waiting is inevitable. We wait for parts to be delivered to the floor. We wait for management to make a decision on an issue. We understand that not all waiting is a bad thing. However, when that wait time becomes excessive and it results in not meeting the demands of our customer it becomes waste.

Waste type 3: Transportation

In every organization in existence, we move people, materials and equipment on a daily basis. The question is whether the way we transport these is the most efficient way to do so. A leading financial firm decided to track a document through one of their processes. When it was all done the document moved the equivalent of 8 miles.? Or a form is needed but it available only one place in the building and to retrieve it requires a hike all the way across the building. The lost time used in obtaining that form is waste to the organization in both productivity and dollars.

Waste 4: Over-processing

The goal of our review of the HR processes within our organizations is to look for steps or tasks we undertake that have no bearing on what the voice of the customer is telling us they want. In many organizations this becomes a huge area of inefficiency and non-effective use of our time. Take under consideration this scenario that we recently learned about. The job requisition was reviewed and improved three times in the hiring process by the same person. If it has been already approved, is it necessary to do it twice more? Think about the silo in your organization that has “their own way of doing something.” If it is different than the rest of the organization the redundancy causes waste. Or even worse think of the department within your organization who thinks they are better than everyone else. Their attitude results in waste to the organization.

Waste type 5: Excess Inventory

Usually when we think about inventory we think of physical product. Inventory refers to how much product is on hand. Here we are talking less about product accumulation and more about just plain too much stuff on hand. Think for a moment about the last time someone created a new form. Inevitably what happens is that 2 years in the process someone changes the form, and the old ones are thrown in the circular file. This creates waste. Another side of this coin is when we have so much work flowing through the process there is no way we can complete the work in a reasonable time frame.

?Waste type 6: Defects

In some circles the waste (muda) would be considered carelessness.? However, mistakes do happen. Considering that statement many defects can be avoided. I fully understand that there will never be a perfect process. Having said that we tend to allow defects because we reward human capital when they fulfill the standard work level. We encourage them to make mistakes in the name of productivity. The ultimate outcome is that these defects do not meet the needs of the customer, so we have to try and fix the problem. Providing more waste.

Waste type 7: Excess Motion

Unless your organization is on the verge of bankruptcy, every organization within the global workplace is in a constant state of motion. Non-value-added tasks are added when this motion means that the organization is not operating at the most efficient level it can. In the course of the workday, we move product, paper, and other outputs through the organization. When that movement creates needless movement, it becomes waste to the organization and our clients.

Waste type 8: Underutilized human capital

Can anyone remember the United Negro College fund commercial pitch line regarding the mind? It stated that the mind is a terrible thing to waste. The use of human capital assets within our organizations is no less an issue. We consistently talk about the need for employee engagement and then we throw up obstacles for reaching that engagement. We create that waste by staffing levels by confining employee development and the way we treat the human capital in our organizations. Each of these actions lead to waste within our organizations.

Waste type 9: Material underutilization

The final source of waste or muda is material underutilization. This can run the gamut from the fairly simple to the much more intense scenarios. Are you one who has to print out every email? We create marketing pieces and only put two pieces per page instead of four, we have created waste.

Waste in our organizations is truly the silent killer. It robs us of valuable time to be the most productive organization we can. It also robs us of the time to be completely serving the needs of our customers both internal and external. Take the time to look at your organization. Take the time to identify, remove and protect your organization from introducing this killer to your organization. It is your choice whether you live with the silent killer, or you open your eyes and take definitive steps to rid the organization of non-value-added activities from the point of view of the customer.

An invite: We have created a new showcase page on LinkedIn focused on our service package. Follow us to stay up to date on what we have available to meet your organizational needs.? https://linkedin.com/shocase/tlscontinuumservices

An invite: We have created a new showcase page on LinkedIn focused on our training opportunities. Follow us to stay up to date on what we have available to meet your training needs. https://www.dhirubhai.net/showcase/training-webinars

An Invite: We have started a new group on LinkedIn. It is the TLS Continuum - The Human Connection. We want to start a conversation regarding how we get around the ASSUMPTION that our human capital assets understand the improvement process and how we can bring them into the game. No selling allowed, just open dialogue. Join the dialogue, invite your network to become involved. https://www.dhirubhai.net/groups/13059813

An Invite: We have a Daniel Bloom & Associates, Inc. company page visit and follow for the latest on our services to the business community to enhance the organizational change initiatives. https://www.dhirubhai.net/company/daniel-bloom-&-associates-inc./

An invite: Join us on Sub stack at https://danielbloomsphrssbb.substack.com. We will post our daily tips but additionally you will find posting that are unique to the sub stack platform and will not be seen anywhere else.

?Looking for the perfect model for improving your organizational processes? Order your copy of the TLS Continuum Field Guide - How the Theory of Constraints, Lean and Six Sigma will transform your operations and Program flow to be released in February of 2024

About the author: Daniel Bloom knows HR and Change Management. He’s a speaker on transformational HR, a strategic HR consultant and trainer. Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter.

The best strategy that I ever undertook was earning my SPHR and the Six Sigma Black Belt. You can take the same path with our Road to Operational Excellence - The Human Capital Edition

For more information visit https://dbaiconsulting.com/tls-continuum-master-seminars/

?

?