Operational Excellence
What is waste?
Waste is an activity that does not create value for businesses and also pushes the price of products up. The types of waste that are still daily, are now available in your business / production process.
In order for a business to survive and grow, all your manufacturing and business activities are geared towards profit. In order to increase profits, your revenue and output must be increased at the same time, the costs of production and business activities must be cut. As a business owner, you need to determine which costs bring value (Labor, systems, materials …) and those that do not create value (defective goods, inventory, product handling). unsatisfactory products….) to remove from your business.
In this article, OPEX will use Lean to help you identify the types of waste and eliminate the revenue and profits of your company increased significantly.
Why eliminate waste?
Do you think customers will choose to buy from you if the price of the product / service is higher than the competitor while the quality of the two sides is similar? The answer of course is NO. Going back to the point, what makes your product cost so high? Is it from unnecessary expenses / waste in the production line? Eliminating all kinds of waste, you can not only solve the price problem, but can achieve more wonderful results such as:
– Profit increases steadily.
– The quality of products increases, the number of defective goods and defects fails to meet the requirements.
– Produce in time (Just In Time), meet the timely requirements of customers.
– Rearrange the workplace clean, tidy and effective.
– Reduce the amount of inventory.
– Improve customer satisfaction (delivery on time, good product quality, reasonable prices)
– Arrange the right human resources, right people at the right time at the right time.
– Waste in transportation
– Waste of inventory
– Waste in operation
– Waste of waiting time
– Waste of process
– Waste of overproduction
– Waste production of defective products
In addition, there are some other types of waste that OPEX will show you at the end of this article.
Transportation is the process of moving raw materials from one stage to another, from one place to another … during the production process. This activity requires a lot of investment in people, trucks, forklifts, etc. but does not create value for the products. Not to mention, the movement is not optimal making the distance, operation longer, more time-consuming.
To solve this problem, there is a 5S tool (ready – clean – arrange – screen – take care) in Lean that can help you optimize the layout of the machine, visually display the areas, The order of priority goods makes the operations continuous and shortens the transport time between stages. In addition, this method also helps to raise the awareness of workers, stipulate where to place materials and tools in the right place and return to the old place when used. Besides, you may consider training multi-skilled workers and standard postures during the production process.
2. Waste of inventory:
When you have inventory, hidden in it is extremely much of the accompanying waste: warehouse space, loss of product quality (due to poor storage conditions / time or for a long time to run out). …), waste of working capital of the business, human resources to manage the warehouse, rent the ground … To eliminate this waste, OPEX will show you some ways:
Operation is understood as the movements of workers in the production process of the product. Some waste in operation such as: moving, rearranging materials, semi-finished products, moving machines …
For example: The worker must bend to get the product on the line, then put it in the basket below, these operations are not only redundant, but also affect the health of workers. The solution to this situation is to rearrange your work area, keep the materials at your waist level to reduce bowing and bending time.
You can easily recognize this type of waste when you see the situation that workers and machines have no work to do, have to stop the machine to wait for the previous stage, waiting for materials, tools or not knowing how to do, have to wait for the instructor…. This causes time to be wasted without value creation, work and chains to be delayed …
Reduce this waste, your production line will become more seamless, more systematic, the preparation process is better, and there must be regulations on the location of the material or time to apply for consideration. approval, shipping time…. to optimize them. You need to seriously consider what problems are caused by waiting, these waiting if not necessary, you need to eliminate or cut them.
Overproduction is when your factory produces goods that exceed the requirements without adding value to customers. This is also completely understandable when your business can deliver goods as soon as customers order. However, this waste will come with a series of other wastes: inventory, management costs, goods preservation, storage space, capital freezing … The cause of this waste may come. from the strict management of the required quantity and the production quantity. To avoid this waste, you need to understand what your customers really want, understand it, and produce it right and in the right quantity. Some tools in Lean can help you eliminate this type of waste such as: Kanban production method or balancing line (avoiding the production stage too fast, other stages not keeping up …)
6. Waste excess process:
Like other wastes, redundancy is a process of not creating value, but we still do it every day as a habit. This waste can be realized when you use inappropriate tools, oversized, unnecessary technical equipment or complex operating processes, across many departments, papers … you need to look back at the side-by-side process and fine-tuning the best: in the shortest possible time with the best quality or some of the following:
This is the easiest type of waste to recognize but also the most serious error: misplacing materials or missing a part during assembly production, scratches on the surface of the product, detailed order. of the wrong product …. This may reflect product quality, production processes that are not tight or have holes. When defects occur, you waste time and dealing with them: recycling or discarding, resulting in waste of materials, labor and production time, the papers and processes generated. The most serious consequence of faulty goods can lead to delayed orders, customers fined orders or more serious customer cancellations. To avoid this waste, in the first place, you need to strictly control and prevent the risk of errors. At this time, the Poka Yoke tool in Lean is very useful, will help you detect errors and avoid repeating them during production.
In addition to the seven types of waste mentioned above, with more than 15 years of practical experience deployed in the factory, OPEX also noticed some other types of waste such as:
To eliminate human waste, you need:
Waste is always a painful problem for every business. Lean manufacturing will focus on creating value for customers, focusing on producing what customers really need and want in the most optimal way. At this time the waste will automatically eliminate.
OPEX believes that with more than 15 years of practical Lean experience at factories can help your business quickly realize the waste and overcome for special breakthroughs.
OPEX Consulting – Operational Excellence Your Business
