The key to Lead Time & Waste (Lean) is thinking about Value Add form a customer perspective.
- This leads us to think in terms of categories for all other activity; either it is Value Add or it isn’t.
- If it isn’t then it is something we have to do to “enable” Value Add (like deal with regulators) or it’s waste.
- Waste comes in many different forms and the 7 wastes shown here are usually found in all operations.
But there are other forms of waste which we also should be aware of particularly the waste of human potential.
Once we understand the value add we then think in terms of ‘streams’ of value (a type of process mapping) and we think in terms of ‘families’ of products/services that have the same value streams.