The Daily Analog: Lean Office
You’ve probably heard the term Lean Manufacturing. Heck, maybe you’ve even implemented lean techniques or the 5S Process in your shop. The 5 S’s are:
As you look at this list, it’s apparent that these activities are applicable beyond the traditional manufacturing plant or fabrication shop. They are applicable to basically any work environment, including the office.
What? Streamline office procedures? I’ve already got a file cabinet, you say. The piles on my desk are sorted, in order, shiny (thanks to the coffee spill this morning), of standard height and weight (more or less), and have sustained the test of time.
It might not always look like it, but there’s a heck of a lot going on in most offices. Those of us who inhabit one for most of the workday like to think that we’re also producing output, at a rate rivaling the jokers in the shop who seem to have a lot of time for horseplay (I wonder what the shenanigans of stable workers are called). Have you seen how fast we’re typing? Wait, is it still called typing?
Guess what? Where there’s output, there’s waste. One of the biggest contributors to output is input. That’s nobody’s fault but time’s. If time ran backwards, output would lead to input, instead of the other way around. But this is not a Physics article. Input generally arrives to the office worker in two forms – paper and electronic. Phone calls and messages are a subset of electronic input, and we’ve generally conditioned ourselves to prioritize phone input. We answer calls, forward them if possible, or convert the call into current or future action. Messages we can sometimes let bog us down, but by far the swampiest bog is email.
One simple way to improve our efficiency dealing with paper and email input is to divide all input into one of three categories at first touch – working, reference, and archive. Working input should be close at hand. You’ll want a basket on your desk for paper working input. For emails, you keep working input in your in-box, or create a folder for it that you visit throughout the workday. Reference input is where you go to find information occasionally, so paper reference input goes into a filing cabinet, probably sectionalized. Email reference input goes into a folder, perhaps multiple folders. My current reference folders are Customer Service, Home, HR, IT, Management, Marketing, Production, and Sales. Archive input also goes into storage, where it’s not likely to ever be recalled, so the file cabinet can be further away, and the email folder can be more general.
Once you have the working/reference/archive system set up, it requires vigilance. As each piece of input enters your work realm, guide it to the appropriate category. If you get behind, stop and take 5 minutes to catch up. It is so much easier to scroll through 35 working emails to determine what to tackle next, then it is to scroll through 35,000 mostly archive emails that haven’t been filtered out.
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One strategy for tackling the work flow is to divide working input into one of four Ds: do it, delegate it, designate time to address it, or dump it. This will help you prioritize pending tasks more effectively, and will also prompt to you address high-priority tasks more efficiently. These working input items are what make up the value stream. Just like there are different currents and pockets in an actual stream, working input will flow through at a rate commensurate with its value and importance.
Don’t be afraid to dump something. If you can honestly determine that doing it would add no value to the stream, dump it into an archive, or maybe kick it back to its source. Note your reasoning, for later reference. Designating time to address something is a calendar function. Put it on a calendar. Check the calendar every day. If the time comes, and there are still more pressing issues, re-designate. If you’ve re-designated something 52 times over the course of a year, might be time to delegate or dump.
Meetings and delegations from above can interrupt work flow, so one beneficial tool to reduce these stoppages and slowages is a shared calendar. Have each employee block out periods of their work day for value work, and identify “meeting corridors” when they are available for a meeting. Establish an understanding between management and office staff that meeting times are subject to the calendar, and that delegations are handed off during non-blocked times.
If a work hand-off situation is creating a bottleneck, with idle hands waiting downstream, it might help to un-batch work tasks. If an assembly line worker has a single task of de-burring a machined part, he can only de-burr one at a time. If he de-burrs in batches of 500, then up to 499 de-burred parts sit at his work station, held back from the next step in the production line. If one of your office workers enters a stack of vendor bills but does not forward any to the next worker who matches the bill with PO and invoice paperwork until he finishes a month’s worth, that next worker might be filling in the time on social media, complaining about their hoarding co-worker. There’s likely a better balance there.
It’s important that employees are given the latitude to perform work tasks in the way that best suits them, and the freedom to organize and execute their work schedule. Given that latitude and that freedom, we are each responsible to reduce wasted time and effort in our own work. Take a look at what you do all day, and how you do it, and ask yourself how you can do it with more efficiency and more effectiveness.