Abstract:

Companies are often surprised to learn that only a fraction of their activities actually add value for their customers. A primary cause of waste is information deficits – employees simply lack the knowledge they need to do their jobs efficiently and effectively. This leads employees to waste valuable time and motion searching, waiting, retrieving, reworking or just plain future action. Companies are able to respond to changing customer desires with high variety, high quality, low cost, and with very fast throughput times. Eliminating waste along entire value streams, instead of at isolated points, creates processes that need less human effort, less space, less capital, and less time to make products and services at far less costs and with much fewer defects, compared with traditional business systems. Companies are able to respond to changing customer desires with high variety, high quality, low cost, and with very fast throughput times.