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Rule 11: Streamline the Work

21 July, 2015 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Expensive places

Sometimes I work in an office in the City of London. It is a very expensive office with a very expensive address and some very expensive views.  It is also chock full of very expensive people.

Try as I might I don’t quite fit in.

Despite all the steel, glass and marble there is a problem with the loos. Not a hygiene problem I must point out.  Just a problem with flow.

The problem with flow:

First you walk to a urinal

Streamline the work

It is polite to wash your hands

Streamline the work

Then you use the hand dryer

Streamline the work

Finally it is best to leave

Streamline the work

There is always a jostle of people walking backwards and forwards from the hand dryers:

  • It is inconvenient
  • There are queues
  • People bump into each other
  • It doesn’t flow

Rule 11. Streamline the work

It gets worse…

Sometimes somebody will start to dry their hands on the very expensive high velocity air dryers.  This is a little distracting if you are  — shall I say — busy.

Never pee into wind ~ Old Chinese Proverb

Unfortunately I don’t think the architect was Chinese.

How does your work flow?

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city of london

Image by Michael Garnett

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Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: gemba, lean thinking, wasted motion

About the Author

James Lawther
James Lawther

James Lawther is a middle-aged, middle manager.

To reach this highly elevated position he has worked in numerous industries, from supermarket retailing to tax collecting.  He has had several operational roles, including running the night shift in a frozen pea packing factory and carrying out operational research for a credit card company.

As you can see from his C.V. he has either a wealth of experience or is incapable of holding down a job.  If the latter is true this post isn’t worth a minute of your attention.

Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to read it and decide for yourself.

www.squawkpoint.com/

Comments

  1. Annette Franz says

    9 August, 2015 at 11:14 pm

    James,

    This is what happens when we don’t test the flow with those who actually have to go through the process or don’t understand how people work/do things. :-(

    Annette :-)

    Reply
  2. James Lawther says

    22 August, 2015 at 1:15 pm

    Yes, sometimes things are too much trouble to fix later

    Reply

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