From the course: Supply Chain and Operations Management Tips
Tips to reduce waste in your operations
From the course: Supply Chain and Operations Management Tips
Tips to reduce waste in your operations
- Every operations manager wants to trim the fat from their supply chain. Well, Toyota gets credit for creating a whole manufacturing philosophy called lean that's focused on just that: improving efficiency by eliminating waste from their processes. In this video, we'll go over the eight different kinds of waste that lean experts look for and that you can use to drive improvement in your own operations. The easiest way to remember the eight wastes is with the acronym TIM WOODS. T is for transportation. Moving people, products, or information from one place to another adds time and cost to your supply chain. When you look for ways to reduce the transportation between steps, you can often speed up a process and lower your costs. I is for inventory. Inventory acts as a buffer to balance the steps in a process, but it costs money, because it ties up your working capital. The more closely you can synchronize all of the steps in your supply chain, the less need you have for inventory. M is for motion. Every movement that a person or a machine makes consumes both time and energy. Positioning work close together can not only reduce the time required to complete a process. It can also make it easier for the people and reduce the wear and tear on your equipment. W is for waiting. Processes often get stopped because of missing parts or missing instructions, and when one process stops, it can have a cascading effect that causes delays throughout a supply chain. Identifying and resolving the issues that cause one process to stop can often eliminate wasted time in several downstream steps. And now for the two Os, overproduction and overprocessing. Overproduction is when you make more than what you need right now. The extra inventory costs money, because it ties up working capital. It also takes up space and is susceptible to theft or damage. As a rule, eliminating waste means you should keep everything in its lowest-value state for as long as possible. Overprocessing is when you make things better than what your customers need or than they'll pay for. You're adding cost without actually creating additional value. That's not to say you should tolerate low quality. It means that you need to understand what your customers' specifications are and then meet those specifications exactly. Next comes D, for defects. If you make a defective product, you've wasted the materials that went into the product and the manufacturing capacity that you used to build it. When defects go undetected, they travel through a supply chain, consuming more time and eating up more capacity. In other words, defects continue to generate waste until they're stopped, so catching defects early is important, and eliminating them altogether is even better. The last form of waste to watch for is wasted skills. Companies can miss out on opportunities to create value and improve processes simply because they don't leverage the skills that their employees have to offer. It's easy for people to slip into a routine and overlook waste in an operation, but in today's competitive environment, no company can afford to be complacent. If you'd like to learn more about lean, check out the course Lean Foundations by Steven Brown. With Steven's instruction and a little help from my friend TIM WOODS, you can use the principles of lean to stay vigilant and make a real difference by eliminating the waste in your supply chain.
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Contents
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Welcome to the course2m 32s
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Focus on supply chain management4m
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Adopt strategic sourcing3m 59s
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Avoid inventory stockouts3m 12s
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Become a sustainability champion4m 10s
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Connect distribution center processes3m 41s
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Drive continuous process improvement4m 19s
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Embrace omni-channel fulfillment3m 46s
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Analyze your supply chain risks3m 32s
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Prepare your business continuity plan3m 11s
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Strengthen supply chain cybersecurity4m 11s
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Track and trace your products3m 58s
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Improve your sales forecast3m 29s
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Use sales and operations planning (S&OP)3m 32s
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Invest in innovation3m 23s
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Lead cross-functional projects2m 55s
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Calculate payback period and NPV3m 29s
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Manage transportation decisions3m 41s
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Analyze the impact of lead times2m 44s
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Develop operations management skills4m 24s
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Tips to reduce waste in your operations4m 9s
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Calculate return on investment3m 38s
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Prevent counterfeiting3m 54s
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Manage employee turnover3m 55s
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Pick the right production strategy3m 25s
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Adopt strategic workforce planning3m 17s
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Optimize your inventory3m 33s
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Manage payment terms and cash flow2m 47s
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Learn about MRP and ERP planning systems3m 30s
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Use big data for operations management2m 54s
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Optimize your perishable inventory3m 22s
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Track your inventory turns2m 34s
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Manage change and transitions3m
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Blockchain for supply chain3m 7s
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Choose meaningful metrics and KPIs3m 25s
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Build flexibility into your supply chain2m 45s
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Automate your supply chain3m 9s
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Optimize your lot sizes3m 1s
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Manage customer returns3m 19s
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Build a career in supply chain operations management2m 51s
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Ten industries for supply chain operations managers2m 49s
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Recruit top talent successfully2m 52s
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Solve problems as a team2m 15s
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Beware of the bullwhip effect2m 55s
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Make your professional development plan2m 56s
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Adopt formal purchasing ethics3m 21s
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Learn about supplier relationship management (SRM)3m 2s
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Use analytics for supply chain3m 32s
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Learn about customer relationship management (CRM)2m 50s
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Learn about warehouse management systems (WMSs)3m 9s
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Learn about transportation management systems (TMSs)2m 49s
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