Jan 14 2012
Tip for Getting More Organized: Don’t
Via Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
This post challenges conventional wisdom on improving the productivity of office work.
“How much time do you spend each day getting better organized? Cut it in half. When it comes to investing time, thought and effort into productively organizing oneself, less is more.”
January 18, 2012 @ 5:24 am
My interpretation: Organizing is necessary waste. The less you do of it the better, but without it important things cannot happen. I could make the same case for lean improvement activities:
“How much time do you spend each day [improving processes]? Cut it in half. When it comes to investing time, thought and effort into [improving], less is more.”
Lean process improvement is necessary waste. The act of improving does not deliver valued product or service to customers, but one can hardly advocate for its elimination.
January 18, 2012 @ 5:49 am
You are using a terminology that is commonly found in the Lean literature and sounds good in marketing overviews but is in fact both simplistic and impractical when you implement.
In reality, there is no such thing as “necessary waste.” If an activity is necessary, by definition, it is not waste. “Necessary waste” is a confusing oxymoron, and the result of defining waste in terms of what customers are willing to pay for. You cannot always know what a customer is or is not willing to pay for. “Waste” is used as a translation of the Japanese “muda” (無駄) which literally means “unnecessary.” Therefore, “necessary waste” really stands for “necessary unnecessary.” try and explain this in Operations.
What you can always assess whether eliminating an activity would degrade your performance in any way. If eliminating an activity would hurt neither productivity nor quality nor delivery nor safety nor morale, then it is waste. Otherwise, it is necessary and, from the point of view of the actions you take, that is the only distinction that matters.