Any suggestions for how I reduce my operational expenses?
Mar 28, 2018

One way is to step back and become sensitive to the waste in your activities that drive costs up and extend lead time. There are eight common forms of manufacturing waste: motion, transportation, inventory, waiting, defects, overproduction, extra-processing, and not utilizing people's talents and creativity. Another perspective is to examine your processes to pinpoint your activities that are non-value-added, in other words things that the customer wouldn't be willing to pay for, which are essentially everything other than processes that directly turn the product into something usable by the customer. Focus on reducing those activities as much as possible. Mapping out your processes from incoming order to shipment, and identifying the time for each process and the waiting time in between processes, can help you see where you have the greatest improvement opportunities. Time is money as Benjamin Franklin supposedly said.

[If you want a deeper dive into operational improvement, consider attending PIA's Continuous Improvement Conference, April 2-5 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.]

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