Did you know that auto manufacturer Toyota has identified seven distinct areas of wasteful inefficiency, all of which can be attributed to any manufacturing operation today? Fundamentally, these wasteful areas that will really kill profitability and open up your organization to charges of excess and a lack of sustainability are: overproduction, waiting time, transport, process, inventory, movement (or motion) and poor quality control.
Just because you cannot “see” an area of waste, does not mean that it is not there. However, overproduction waste is a glaring example of corporate excess and points to the fact that many companies take a simplistic view of waste production, overall. It’s amazing to see that many organizations think that overproduction is a necessary part of doing business.
Overproduction waste is simply the production of goods in quantities that are greater than demand. This position will be especially aggravated during an economic slowdown and will become very difficult to reverse. Remember that for an item to be “overproduced” it will have incurred additional elements of waste all the way down the lifecycle process, including administrative and financial loss.
In corporate culture, there is a feeling that if a production line is not utilized 100% of the time, or if particular employees are allowed to be idle at all, that this is more wasteful than letting them operate 24/7. This is a popular misconception and will at the least require a more educated assessment of equipment ROI.
Resources will be wasted needlessly wherever overproduction waste and excess is in existence. Whenever an item is produced with the intention of a sale, it has within its making an element of support, admin, backup, finance and other expense. If the item sits on the shelf, where is the profit?
A management system needs to reveal excesses as it tries to tackle overproduction waste, fundamentally by ensuring that no item can physically be produced unless the corresponding work order is actually in possession. Physically this means that the production equipment cannot engage unless it senses that a sale is in the system.
Environmental issues go alongside economic pressures, so that every company must consider how to become sustainable, as a consequence. While carbon emissions are one of the most important elements in the battle for sustainability, the entire concept must include waste reduction, less water usage and elimination of excess throughout the company.
Fully inclusive sustainability management tools could help to educate the company’s management and identify areas of inefficiency, such as overproduction waste. Such systems will almost always pay for themselves in short order.
Daniel Stouffer has a great deal of information about your overproduction waste and how a visit to www.verisae.com can be of use to you.
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