Occupy Gemba

The core idea of the “Occupy” movements across the world has tremendous value. It is a call for action and until result is promised, it is non-negotiable. This tinge of stubborn-ness can be a source of wealth of improvements in the organization if it is channelized in the right direction. If we take a leaf out of the movements and apply it in the organization, then all the senior executives decide to “Occupy Gemba” for just 90 minutes every week with a strict non-negotiable stubborn-ness to find out the 99% activities that are adding to your cost against the 1% activities that brings you the money. The sole aim of “Occupy Gemba” would be to find wastes those 99% activities that does not count.

This war-footing would set your organization on a journey in performance excellence that would be unparalleled.

(Gemba = Japanese for workplace)


(cross-posted at www.bmgindia.wordpress.com)

Lean Is Not Eliminating Waste

One of the teams I worked with on the current value stream map for a throughput and subsequently the future value stream, I recollect the question we were confronted with - how to increase the value creating ratio? We tried our might to bring the non-value creating time to as low as possible, but, the required storage of even 3 days made sure we still had to struggle to get the ratio even to a double digit. 

It is at this time that one of the members asked if we have to increase the value creating ratio, then we have to either decrease the denominator (component of non-value creating time) OR increase the numerator (value creating time)! This directly translates to the question, how do we add more value to the customer? This is the core of lean - how do I add more value to the customer? How do we increase our offerings to the customer in a way that will increase the value already being added? Have you thought about this for your business or your throughput?


How much ever you eliminate waste, at the end you have to delight your customer. The core of lean does not talk about eliminating waste, but to increase value addition.


(cross-posted at www.bmgindia.wordpress.com)