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The Toyota Production System (TPS) grew out of a need to reduce wastage in the assembly line and deliver quality. The principles of TPS hold good in every aspect of life. While it is easy to think of reduction of wastage in manufacturing areas, one does wonder how it can be applied to intangible areas like non-manufacturing.

A new crop of ‘Lean’ thinkers have sprung up, advocating the use of Lean principles in many non-manufacturing areas. We do not like wastage. Now if you apply that in non-manufacturing areas, there are many areas where waiting times are huge leading to wastage of time that can be employed productively elsewhere. Take for instance the amount of time you are forced to wait for your billing at your local grocery store; doesn’t that irritate you? Haven’t you sat through aimless meeting, your exasperation growing as people keep procrastinating? These are just a couple of examples, which underline wastage. A precious resource like time that can be employed productively elsewhere is wasted in meetings with no objective.

Many big companies like GE, for instance, are advocating the application of TPS in the organization. Increasing productivity is the goal of every organization. Productivity can be optimized by increasing efficiencies.

What is productivity? To put it simply, Input divided by Output is productivity. We look to ways to reduce input so as to achieve maximum productivity, with quality. The objective of Lean is to deliver products and services of high quality with the optimum use of resources like capital, effort and time. This concept when applied will automatically bring down wastage but at the same time, ensuring a product or service of high quality. Increasing efficiencies of labor, cost and effort to produce a quality service or product is the objective of Lean. When you start thinking ‘Lean’, it becomes a ubiquitous part of your life. You start seeing wastage everywhere.

The concept of Lean is now applied in many government departments, Army, financial services, customer support systems, hospitals and the like. Take for instance how it was before the era of ATM’s electronic banking. Think of the past times when you had to wait in long queues waiting for the cashier to dispense cash. Since banks worked only during the day, you would have to take some time off from work, go to the bank, stand in the queue and wait for the cashier to hand over the cash you had requested for. Your organization lost out on your time, you wasted time in waiting in the queues and cashier’s time could have been employed elsewhere. With the introduction of ATM’s, a whole lot of wastage has been done away with.

Admittedly it is difficult to visualize how TPS can be applied in non-manufacturing areas. One way out would be introducing metrics. Take for instance, attending customer complaint calls for service. You can ensure a time schedule for attending to such customer complaints. If the complaint is not attended to in the prescribed schedule, you can call for explanations and find out the reason. A satisfied customer is the best advertisement for your product.

Office work is boring, repetitive and uninteresting, with people tending to take their own time about completing their tasks. As Parkinson says, “Work expands to fill the time available.” To get people to value time, it is necessary to introduce metrics. Once you understand how long it takes to complete a task, you are on the way to thinking ‘Lean’.

Take for instance finance functions like the annual closing of books of accounts at the end of the financial year. This is the time when you require more hands to complete closing of books. Often, organizations loose sight of the importance of ensuring that books of account are closed in time. The focus is often on getting people from sister departments for closure. The time required to train these people is not taken into consideration, resulting in improper use of time and human resources. This is ‘waste’. This situation calls for thinking “Lean”.

The key to implementing TPS in non-manufacturing areas is to think of reducing wastage in human resources, time, cost and effort.

6Sigma.us is the premier source for training, education and support of these three key leaders. Look to 6Sigma.us to be a valued partner in implementation, training and consulting of the methodology in your manufacturing organization. If you are not seeing the desired results you imagines, reach out to us today.