Thinking Lean
Believe it or not, studies have shown that in excess of 60% of the supply chain activities you perform every day add no value to either your internal or external customers. Simply put, they wouldn’t pay for them if they knew what the cost was to serve them. Does this surprise you?
Well it shouldn’t! I know of supply chain professionals that have been doing the same things every day, the same way, for 20 years who haven’t questioned why they are doing it. Nor, have they analyzed if their activities and processes can be leaned even further to reduce their cost-to-serve to their customers.
A good example of this un-lean thinking is that some hospitals are still stocking office supplies, x-ray film, paper towels and lab supplies in their warehouses when it adds no value to their customers to do so. These commodities should be delivered directly to their home departments by your suppliers to dramatically reduce your handling cost.
Value analysis is another area where lean thinking is absent in my judgment. I have seen as many as 35 members attend a value analysis committee meeting, which I would consider a mob, where little or no real work was accomplished. Does having 35 members add value to your value analysis process? By the way, we have found that 10 people is the ideal number of team members that you should have on your value teams.
The lesson to be learned here is that we should all be THINKING LEAN (what would the customer pay for if they knew its cost) in everything we do, and then always be searching out new ways to reduce the cost-to-serve our customers.
THINKING LEAN is really a simple concept to learn and apply. If you want to save big by introducing practical ideas, methods and techniques the thinking lean concept will cut your costs to serve your customers one activity or process at a time.
Filed Under: Best Practices • savingsblog
