How to Reduce Waste by 30% in Your Organization

In the fall of 2020, Kaas Tailored hosted a series of Zoom calls unpacking our Daily Management System (DMS). Each month we focused on a different element of our DMS, starting with strategy, then discussing daily huddles, then talking about Visual Management Systems (VMS), and ending with Leader Standard Work. In this post, Jeff explains why understanding flow is the first step in reducing waste within your organization.

Today we are going to focus on huddles, one main way that we know and show the truth, and how they relate to our values. The premise of today’s talk was supposed to be “how daily huddles can help organizations achieve flow,” but I am not sure that all of you even want flow. The question I think that most organizations need to start with is, “What is flow, and why should I even care?”

What is Flow? 

“What is flow?” The simplest version of flow is creating value without delay, and that the value creation never stops. Today’s focus will be on the information factory. This is frankly where things get stuck. For example, it’s easy to have an idea and think, “This is super solid; let’s do it.” Then when it blows up in six months, no one remembers how it got started or knows why it blew up. 

Why Use Flow? 

So why flow? When you take a system and move it from not flow to flow, there is always a 30% improvement. Always. This is a great reason if you are a business person who cares about higher quality, lower costs, and a shorter lead time. It’s always 30%. It’s so reliably 30% that I can tell you it’s almost always 50%. If you get a 25% improvement by moving to flow, you screwed up. 

The Benefits of Flow 

In addition to that, we see a big impact on fear reduction, a huge reduction in anxiety, and an overall increase in levels of joy. All of these benefits are as important for organizations as learning and innovation, but they can also help employees get home on time to spend time with their families. If anyone is ever talking to you and you are in a position to say, “Should we learn about Lean, Kaizen, or flow?” and they are not interested in a 30% improvement on things that matter to the organization, I recommend you walk out of the room. These benefits have been proven over and over again; this is not a Jeff thing – this is a science thing.

If you’d like to learn more about how to implement a Daily Management System within your organization, or more about Kaizen and Continuous Improvement, consider signing up for a Kaas Tailored Waste Tour.