"Flow, Not Joe"

Too often when those new to "lean thinking" first discover Ohno's 7 forms of Waste, there is a tendency to equate waste with non-value added job tasks.  This really gets problematic when the entire job turns out to composed of non-value added work, which is quite possible in business or transactional processes.

Especially if "Joe" is doing that job currently.

More experienced lean thinkers know that other forms of waste in business processes such as delays, re-keying of data, and batching of work are often present, and have a much greater impact on flow, than Joe does.

So, finding and removing barriers to flow is the goal.  Joe should be assigned now to value-creating work.

This is the key theme of my presentation ("Flow, not Joe") at the 2010 ASQ Lean and Six Sigma Conference.

I hope you can make it, and please tell Joe not to worry anymore.