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Overproduction Waste is One of the Seven Deadly Sins

By Daniel Stouffer

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 04Aug2010 Word count: 412 Viewed: 231 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Did you know that auto manufacturer Toyota has identified seven distinct areas of wasteful inefficiency, all of which can be attributed to any manufacturing operation today? Fundamentally, these wasteful areas that will really kill profitability and open up your organization to charges of excess and a lack of sustainability are: overproduction, waiting time, transport, process, inventory, movement (or motion) and poor quality control.

Make no mistake about it, because you cannot obviously see an area of waste it does not mean that it is not there. Overproduction waste is a glaring example and it's true today that most companies pay only token lipservice to the concept of waste production. In fact, many organizations believe that overproduction is a necessary part of doing business.

Overproduction waste is simply the production of goods in quantities that are greater than demand. This position will be especially aggravated during an economic slowdown and will become very difficult to reverse. Remember that for an item to be "overproduced" it will have incurred additional elements of waste all the way down the lifecycle process, including administrative and financial loss.

In corporate culture, there is a feeling that if a production line is not utilized 100% of the time, or if particular employees are allowed to be idle at all, that this is more wasteful than letting them operate 24/7. This is a popular misconception and will at the least require a more educated assessment of equipment ROI.

If overproduction waste and excess is endemic in the organization, the company will be hemorrhaging resources. Remember that every item produced carries a cost in terms of backup, support, administration, finance and other overheads and as it sits on a shelf, the company's profit potential also gathers dust with it.

Systemically, overproduction waste can be reduced or eliminated if a management system is incorporated to reveal excesses and also to correlate production to the work order pipeline. Quite simply, if a sale is not made or projected, the production equipment should be constrained from engaging.

In the modern era, economic pressures lineup alongside environmental awareness to force every company to consider its own sustainability. While carbon emissions may be the poster child of sustainability, the concept includes waste reduction, water use consolidation and elimination of excess, wherever it may be found.

Fully inclusive sustainability management tools could help to educate the company's management and identify areas of inefficiency, such as overproduction waste. Such systems will almost always pay for themselves in short order.

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