OK, so there’s a recession and we’re all trying to find ways to increase our revenues and profit. One common way managers solve these problems is to increase sales. However, one other way to affect the bottom line is to start looking at how you can reduce waste in your business processes.
This is where business process training can help your business. We can help you identify where your business’ processes need improvement, where they are inefficient, and ineffective and how to fix where the process is having the biggest negative impact on your customers.
Below is a list of “6 Common Deadly Wastes in Every Business”. If you recognize these issues in your company then your bottom line is being affected negatively. Take note that business processes can be anything having to do with your organization from how phone calls are handled to complex manufacturing procedures.
1. Over Production
This is making too much of whatever you’re producing. Excess inventory is lost revenue. Make enough of what you need and no more. Also make sure you’re not processing things too early.
2. Waiting
Waiting is caused by a bottleneck in your business’ processes. It means something is stuck at a certain point and there are people waiting to move it to the next part of the process. It most cases it is very hard for waiting time to reduce to 0% but you should always strive for 0% as a goal. A bottleneck also signals that there is wasted time on behalf of your employees. If they are waiting around for something to do then its wasted time and wasted money.
3. Transportation
If transportation is included in one of your business processes it is almost always wasteful. Reason being is that customers don’t pay for it (unless it is included in a delivery agreement). The more products are moved around, the more likely they will be damaged. Communication is key when transportation is involved, even if you are simply moving boxes around in your office.
4. Improper Processes
Think “using a sledgehammer to crack a nut”. Are you using a very sophisticated machine to make something very simple? Is someone with valuable qualifications and experience doing the filing? It works the other way round too – e.g. printing hundreds of brochures on a cheap ink-jet printer!
5. Unnecessary Motions
This refers mostly to ergonomics. Are your employees are required to repeatedly stretch, bend, pick-up, move in order to see something? This can affect their health and safety as well as the efficiency of your process.
6. Defects
Defects are always costly. Defects on products or services that have been delivered leads to field repairs, refunds, and additional transportation costs. If the defects are internal, it leads to wasted time and extra time to do the job again.
So – the big question is – how do you get rid of them?! Metaspire can help by teaching you valuable tools to combat these 6 common process issues. Contact us for more information.
