TECH OUTLOOKOctober - 20209Almost everything else adds no or minor value from a customer's perspective.An organization, however, does not "just" lose 80+% of their administrative staff hours. There is more at stake.You might all remember the graphic of a boat on the water with rocks beneath the water level (see figure x). The rocks represent the "hidden" problems and the water level represents some sort of buffer (For example: Work In Process level (WIP) or Inventory). The concept conveyed is that if you reduce for instance your WIP level in manufacturing, the hidden problems (both known and unknown) will show up and you will be forced to fix them otherwise the boat (your production process) will come to a halt. WIP reduction projects should therefore always be executed in a way where the WIP is reduced gradually, to account for (especially) the unknown problems that will show up.What if the same concept applies to our administrative processes? That would mean, we are not only wasting 80% of a person's time, energy and passion on activities that do not add value; we also allow the "rocks" to exist. These problems beneath the water level are not merely the source of non-value added time, they can also cause value to be destroyed. (Mistakes in planning can lead to excess inventory, expedited shipments, write offs and so on). As in manufacturing, some of these issues in the administrative world are well known and some of them will only show up once you start to attack the "wasted" time by redesigning your processes and systems Today most managers, consultants and software systems aim to improve `the known 20%' of value adding activities. When you ask a planner what they do in a regular work day, they will probably talk to you about `the known 20%'. Wouldn't it be interesting to ask them about `the other 80%'?Be amazed by the answer and decide to harvest this hidden gem, reduce cost, increase on time performance, reduce inventory and last but not least make a meaningful change to your employees work life as they will feel the shift from non-value added to value added in their day-to-day work life. Work In Process (WIP)Figure: Known and Unknown issues hidden in high WIP levelsLean manufacturing techniques that drive out waste have become commonplace in most manufacturing environments
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