Process Design to Measure Inefficiencies

Ever wonder why certain parts of the work you are doing take a long time while others fly by? Value streams over time can become polluted with inefficiencies which crop up as a result of people trying to be creative with a process and trying to solve other issues. This likely came from problems which were encountered in the past and are now trying to be solved with addition of embedded steps.

Break down your process into logical chunks and capture data around each transition to understand time and resources for each step.

Understanding the Process

If you feel as though inefficiencies have crept up in your value stream, it is time to go back to understanding the reasoning behind each step. Since the process was defined its likely people have tried to add value to your stream by creating extra steps / checks / decision points which may be slowing the process down. Get your hands dirty, dive in and participate in the process in production to understand what is going on. Map out what you find.

Automated Timestamp Collection

At this point in the process your goal is not to make any improvements or changes, only to measure what is going on. Armed with your new understanding of the process, add in new defined steps as part of the process. At each transition point make sure the date and time or duration from the last step is saved for later measurement. Automate collecting this time information where possible as you don't want to create extra work.

Make the Change

Now that you know which parts of your process are taking the longest, go through each step to understand the value-add of that piece. Go through these questions:

• Why does this step exist?

• How else could this step be accomplished?

• What led to the step being created?

• Can this step be automated / engineered away?

Oftentimes you will find the process has become overloaded because of a lack of understanding the higher level issues and how to address them. Given this analysis start to become aware of process bloating and strategically solve problems as they come up to avoid un-necessary complexity.