The 7 deadly waste are quite visible in the manufacturing industry , but its somewhat difficult to spot them in service industry or departments like marketing, creativity, management. 

What are some of the best ways to track or spot them in these areas and highlight them to decision makers or the one who hold the power to implement changes at a wider scale.

 

 

 

new sales

sales targets

customers lost

potential business lost to competitors

customer complaints

service delivery failures

customer visits

customer support

Look out for one or more of the following.

• Partial done work / incomplete or unfinished work waiting for other department to pick up
  
• Delays
  
• People switching their tasks too frequently (too much multitasking)
  
• Too many handoffs in the process.
  
• Missed deadlines, customers, targets
  
• Lost profit, customer or business
  
• Customer complaints
  
• Time / money wasted on extra features (eg., additional details in management reports, added features in the creative work, impossible incentive promises in sales etc.)
  

Would appreciate,if we could add the following too:

1.Inadequate risk management , due to lack of perception during the planning stage.

2.Non Application of lean principles to hasten a process.

3.Non evaluation of process capability ,prior starting the work

Dear Israr,

To answer your question, can I ask a question?

Which service industry or departments like marketing, creativity, management do you not see or observe the following?

Excessive Transportation of paperwork

Excessive Inventory of work to be completed at a desk or station

Excessive Motion of people moving, twisting, turning, bending to complete work they have to

Excessive Waiting to get a decision, information to complete their step in the whole process

Multiple times processing (Over-processing) the same order to make it better or it comes back to him/her again to do something different

Excessive production (Over-production) to keep employees busy or reduce the cost per unit (taking customer orders more than what can be processed within a time frame)

Reprocessing a Defect that was processed wrong first time

Not involving Employees who are the process experts but make changes based on perception what is done or based on here-say to provide a service

My best guess is that you will say, I can see all of these every where. You may have to dig a little bit deeper and use SIPOC with the perspective of internal and external customers & suppliers in the whole value chain.

I have typically used SIPOC with identified metrics for Inputs, Process and Outputs. This helps me to develop my project metrics and quantify the improvements made in output(s). If you like I can  provide a template for your ready reference with an example (though from manufacturing world), which might help you think in similar manner. Let me know.