In the early stages of improvement, most people cannot readily see these wastes and have to be taught how to make the waste visible. More-over, many processes are designed to hide the waste. This hiding of the was happens for many reasons, but a common problem I find is that most management systems do not reward the identification of waste. when is the last time you heard an leader say, "thank for identifying this problem". As a manager if you do find it, likely you have added to your workload as you will be responsible for resolving the waste.
One of the great tools used to surface waste in a classroom environment is the technique of product/process and information flow mapping. More recently this techniques has been given the more glamorous name of "value stream" mapping, or value stream mapping and analysis.
What I enjoy the most about value stream mapping is it requires the team to map the flow of activities, both good and bad, so they can understand the entire work flow. This end to end look at a process enables people to not only see how they fit into the system, but it also shows how the system is truly performing. And this system performance is analyzed from the customer's perspective. This perspective is quite humbling when the team realizes that 95-99% of the activities are Non-Value Added activity. You can review the picture of a value stream map to get a sense of appreciation for how much activity is "wasteful". The pink post-it notes in the picture document the wastes identified with the current process.
I have a simple axiom I like to quote when working with teams, " If you can't see the waste, you can't eliminate it." Using some of the tools and techniques of value stream mapping will help you and your teams see the non-value added activity.
Lean Blessings!
Ron
Ron Bercaw
www.breakthroughhorizons.com
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