“Once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than 5 minutes” -Albert Einstein
In manufacturing, we have tools to determine cycle times, minimize changeovers, reduce inventory… and so forth. But how does it translate to services?
How can you translate the tools and applications of manufacturing to the service industry
I feel that it’s easier than it looks.
– If I am waiting for someone to do something in a project → I am in a WIP (Work in progress) situation
– If I need more information to do my job → I am in a material waste situation
– If I get requests for the same thing in different formats → I am not in “FLOW” and lack consistency
If this is the first time looking at process improvement, I recommend you start with why? as Simon Sinek says.
Let’s look at my issues from the Lean Lens:
– Why am I waiting for this? What’s the bottleneck? How can we streamline it?
– Why is the information missing? What are we missing in the process to capture that data?
– Why do we have different request formats? Is there a procedure that details how they should be made?
This is not rocket science and I am not trying to be condescending but yet, a lot of times we follow a process that we know isn’t good and we don’t question it.
“We have always done it like this”
Better questions first. ALWAYS.