New Book Part 17

In my last post we began a discussion on value-added versus non-value-added activities and made a list of some of the key areas of interest that might reduce the overall cycle time. In today's post, we will continue our discussion on non-value-added times and how we can capitalize them for cycle time reductions.  As a reminder, this material is taken from my newest book, The Focus and Leverage Improvement Book - Locating and Eliminating the Constraining Factor of Your Lean Six Sigma Initiative. published by Routledge/Productivity Press.

Just to refresh your memory, here is the list we put together in my last post.

• Transport time – moving product from point A to point B.

• Set-up time – converting a process from one configuration to another.

• Queue time – time spent waiting to be processed.

• Process batch time – time waiting within a batch.

• Move batch time – time waiting to move a batch to the next operation, which could also include time in storage.

• Wait-to-match time – time waiting for another component to be ready for assembly.

• Drying time – time waiting for things like adhesives to become ready to be assembled.

• Inspection wait time – time waiting for products to be inspected.

We said in my last post that there might be others we could add to our list, but for now assume this is our list. Which of these items add value? Clearly none of them do, so they would all be classified as non-value-added. There obviously are things we could do to reduce each one of these. For example, process batch time, is driven by the process batch size, so we could do two things that would reduce this time. We could optimize the batch size that we produce, and in conjunction with this, we could reduce the time required for set-up. In doing these two things, we would probably also reduce the move batch time, and maybe even the wait-to-match time. Clearly these actions would reduce the overall cycle time.

But even if we were successful in reducing cycle time, we would not realize a single piece of Throughput, unless we reduced the processing time and non-value-added time of the operation that is constraining the Throughput, the constraint. Any attempts to reduce processing times in operations that are not constraining Throughput, are quite simply wasted effort.

The key to making more money now and in the future, is tied to two single beliefs, focus and leverage. In TOC terminology, these two beliefs of focus and leverage are fundamental to the idea of exploiting the constraint. If you want to increase your Throughput, then there is only one effective way to accomplish it. You must leverage the operation that is limiting your Throughput, your constraint operation! And how do you leverage your constraining operation? You do so by focusing your available improvement resources on your constraint and reduce the non-value-added and value-added times within the current cycle time. It’s really that simple!

So, are you ready to begin your own cycle of improvement now? Not quite.  There are other important things that you must consider, before beginning your own cycle of on-going improvement. There are 10 prerequisite beliefs that apply to your organization that, I believe must be considered before you begin your journey.

In my next post, we will discuss these prerequisite beliefs in detail and then move on.
Bob Sproull