Getting Rid of Waste

The media are reporting “green shoots appearing” on a daily basis but many businesses are still operating in a tough environment.

We continue to observe that the first thing most organisations do in tougher times is seek to “cut costs”.

What does this mean?  Normally when a general manager or chief executive is faced with this challenge by their board or owners they aim for the low hanging fruit.  The first response is usually marketing, travel and staff development.

Ask yourself if this makes any sense?  Difficult trading times are times to focus on your communication to market not make arbitrary cuts.  Yes it is hard for most of us to understand what does and doesn’t work in marketing but the first conversation we usually find ourselves having with managers is “why have you stopped communicating with your customers”?

The second area that takes a hit is travel.  The question we must always ask is “what’s the best way to achieve our aims here”.  Often you may find that face to face communication is easily the best approach.  We are however also stepping up other methods of communicating – video conferences, phone conferences, webinars etc. 

Staff development is the third area that usually takes a hit.  Again ask yourself if your business is delivered through your people why would you cut the development of a key resource.  You need to be sensible about this but targeted training and development is a great motivator for your people and continues to strengthen your business.

So where should you cut.  A good sensible approach is to step back a level and think where waste might happen.  We are using a framework with our clients that focus on the following areas:

• Overproduction
• Waiting
• Transporting
• Inappropriate processing
• Unnecessary inventory
• Unnecessary motions
• Defects

By focusing on the bigger picture and then drilling down we are able to assist clients in identify areas that waste can be removed. 

We are looking to work with as many of our clients as possible to help in this area.  If you are interested in more information about this approach please drop me a note at graham.crombie@ph.co.nz.  I am sure we can work something out.

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Last updated: 28th October 2009 | 12:46 pm