For the most part, businesses aim to run as smoothly as possible with as little waste they can manage. Waste doesn’t always refer to recycling or rubbish involved in the processes of the business, but time wasting. Time is one of the biggest waste products of a business, and if you understand that, then you understand why it is important for companies to minimise it. Time costs money – everyone knows that. The more time that you or your employees waste, the more money you are costing yourself.
Lean business processes are a complex notion which you can read in more detail here, but in its essentials, it means that the processes in production or the cost don’t impact the company bottom line. As a company, you have to improve your businesses efficiencies at every given opportunity. Managing the time used by your company in every department should be of utmost importance. The way to do this is by careful consideration of how each of your employees and processes works. Compressing time is far more efficient than trying to juggle the assets of the company. Eliminating business waste should be your overall target and there are five areas of business that all companies have that are very wasteful. We’ve detailed them for you below.
- Inventory. For a business that is largely product based and filled with contracts, inventory can be a massive waste. Streamlining this process by programs you can find at this website, can take the time wasted by employees struggling to keep up with maintaining inventory and supplier contracts and put them to better use elsewhere instead. If you spend a lot of money on the supplies in your office, you’ve wasted time taken to maintain contracts and even buying the paper to do so. Keeping it online and efficient is the best option.
- Overproduction. Again, this one loops back toward inventory, especially when working in manufacturing. Instead of keeping employees producing the same work over and over, you can trim that back and only produce what you need. This means you won’t be wasting materials, time and money to do more than is necessary and money is better spent elsewhere.
- Over-Processing. There are many companies that do more than the needed checks in every aspect of their company. This includes taking extra hours to fix issues or any defects or even extra time taken on mundane paperwork. If you happen to have a process whereby an invoice needs three different sign-offs before processing, it’s time to cut back!
- Transport. If you find that in your company your products are being routed around different areas before landing in their destination, then you should be evaluating how your products are handled. Money, fuel and time are taken in manufacturing to manage products and better software and smoother operations can really make a difference to your time wasted.
- Downtime. Periods of inactivity by employees in business can cost you money. If every minute is not used effectively, your company can eliminate some of the downtime spent in production.
Lean processes may not work for every business, but if you can adopt some of the guidelines you could find your company running more efficiently than ever.
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