Over-Processing Waste - Unnecessary Complication
Part 6 of Value Creation & Waste; A Lean Practitioner's Perspective
Over-Processing waste
Over-Processing is essentially any activity that the customer doesn’t value, and you might be surprised how much of this we do! It links directly to the lean principle of understanding value from the customer’s perspective and aligning your processes to create that value.
As with all of the seven wastes, over-processing waste can occur in all types of organisation, but I do note that it is particularly prevalent within service providers, finance, government, administrative, and command and control structured organisations. I will always look carefully for over-processing waste when working for these organisations. It includes some of the typical bureaucratic wastes of duplication, excess paperwork, authorisations and inspections that add no value. It is also important to note that the rework of defects also falls into this category, which is an example of waste amplifying waste. Rework is not value adding as it fails one of our three criteria for an activity to be value adding – that the work must be right first time.
Not to say that over-processing can't also occur in manufacturing. When I was managing a remanufacturing centre, I engaged a 3rd party company who would assist us with reworking motors for our clients. This typically involved rewinding, fitting new bearings and testing. We took pride in this work and ensured that the motors were repainted in their original colours, returning them looking as new. During a visit to a client, I was somewhat horrified to see them pulling some motors apart that we had just returned to them. “Why are you doing that?” I asked, thinking that our work may have had some defect. “Oh, we need them to be yellow, so we take the housings off and send them out to be repainted” was the answer. Naturally, I told them we could paint them yellow for them. They were delighted. Always align your process to provide what the client wants and is prepared to pay you for! Excess effort may simply be wasteful.
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