Over production – Waste of non lean manufacturing

I published my last post on wastes in lean manufacturing. I listed the waste categories identified in lean. I am going to discuss the first waste of lean, overproduction in manufacturing, office, software development and service contexts.

In simple terms over production is producing something before it is actually required. This is the other end of JIT manufacturing where products are manufactured when they are required in the quantities required. We identify this manufacturing model as mass manufacturing.

So in lean manufacturing over production is the main source of inventory. When goods are manufactured without real demand for them the work in progress and inventory levels goes high. This ties up capital since the goods are in stock not making cash. If the manufacturer does not have the demand, they have to create it. This involves cost in the form of advertising costs, costs of discounts etc. on the other hand over production greatly reduces the flexibility of the system. If one process has manufactured extra items generally manufacturing needs to be carried out until the stock is over. This takes time and hence it is difficult to change from one to another product quickly. Problems of the system are hidden in inventory. Problems will never get highlighted and hence will never get removed from the system.

This can be avoided using the pull manufacturing techniques. Manufacturing will take place if there is a requirement from the previous process. From the organizational point of view the requirement will be created by selling their product, for an internal sub process the requirement will be triggered by the process after that. By practicing pull manufacturing products can be manufactured in exact quantities in exact timelines.

In a lean office context over production means doing something before someone really request it. Pre filled forms and documentation are great examples. If the year is printed on a form it should be thrown out when the year ends. Doing extensive research and extensive analysis and taking no action is another great example.

Every office must know where they will get the demand and must know how to fulfill it. Creation of simple processes and procedures will help in managing the requests faster and therefore there will not be any requirement to do something before the actual request to save time.

In lean software development over production means additional features delivered without a real need for it. Sometimes these tools find creative use in operation. But in most of the cases these features will lie there without any usage and sometimes can lead to confusion. Developing these features require analysis, documentation, development and testing. Each of these stages costs both in terms of money and time. In development stages these features increase the inventory, work in process and obviously increase the timeline for the delivery. In software development more time you take to develop the product more complex it gets.

This can be avoided by careful requirement capturing and analyzing the requirements. Then the development can be divided in to small deliverable units which can be integrated. Testing will be much faster and users will get the output quicker. So users does not have tome to change before the product is delivered. Additional features can be added based on the requirements. This is the application of lean manufacturing pull concept in software development.

In lean services over production is basically having too many services embedded in to a solution when it is actually not required. If someone buys a mobile phone how many services they get with it and hence they pay for. But how many of you have used these complex technologies other than to make a call or to send a text message. People should know what they will get from the service provider exactly and they should get it.

You can give them the basic service they are looking for and then if they are interested can provide the additional services. In this case there is no need for the service provider to be ready with all the possible services at any given time. They can call for the expertise when the customer wants it. Here you will save your money since you are not going to invest in something there is no real requirement. On the other hand customer will pay for what he is actually using.

It is interesting to identify over production outside lean manufacturing. Certainly we all do things before there is an actual demand. This is the time to revisit that strategy.