The Process Ninja

The Concept of "Dead Time" in Processes

When I was at University I studied the classic Human Resources stuff - Maslow's hierarchy of needs, etc. One of the classic studies (of which I have forgotten the name) always sticks in my mind.

The experiment measured how workers in a factory worked most productively. It essentially discovered that those who worked rapidly could only keep up the rapid work for a certain amount of time before they "burned out" whilst those that were most productive worked at a steady pace throughout.

What this shows is that the "fast" workers were probably operating near to 100% productivity, while the others were operating at, say 70%. When the fast workers burnt out they (for example) dropped to 30% productivity - so overall their productivity was less over the piece.

Where I am going with this is what I call the concept of "dead time". In any process where human beings are involved you will rarely or never have 100% productivity - it's just not our nature. "Dead time" is the gap between 100% productivity and actual productivity.

So why is this important? Well it needs to be considered when looking at processes. This is because it is a waste of effort, time, money, etc. to improve process steps that fall into "dead time". For example is it worth installing new lifts in a building that are super fast to enable employees to get to their desks quicker? I'd say probably not as this period of time may fall into "dead time". Is it worth spending money on a super fast coffee machine in the kitchen? Probably not because people will still stand around and talk to whoever is in the kitchen at the time.

These are simplistic examples, but it is always important to realise that there will always be percentage of "dead time" in every process - it isn't always worth optimising every stage of the process - making the judgement call of what fits into "dead time" is the tricky part.

- TPN

How (and how not) to throw money down the drain with process

You'd think that in the midst of the "GFC" companies would be looking at ways to make their processes more efficient, yet there are still many companies out there that like to throw money away hand over fist.

One of these companies is a furniture chain called Fantastic Furniture ("The package deal kings"). I like fantastic furniture. I don't like all their products, but I get what they are trying to do. They are the budget furniture company and they've pretty much got hold of their target market by the short and curlies. Now this isn't a story about customer service - it's a story of internal process. I'm not going to whinge about them from a personal point of view as when you buy something  cheap you often get cheap service - I can live with that if the price is right. But what I find amazing is when a company like theirs wastes money. OK, here's the story...

I looked online at their website and found a bed and cabinets that I wanted to buy. Actually I'd already seen it in the store. I would have loved to have bought online, but alas, no online store.

Mistake no 1: no online store.

So I call my local store and ask if it's in stock. Yes the bed is in stock he tells me but the cabinets will take longer. OK, says I, can I buy the bed now and collect the cabinets later? Yes, says he. All I need to do is pay a deposit over the phone go to the store, pay for the bed and then go and collect it at the warehouse?

Excuse me? says I. Can't I just pay for it over the phone and collect it from the warehouse? No says the man.

Mistake no 2: Poor process design fed by bureaucracy.

So I go to the store they look me up in the computer and alas I'm not there. We spend 10 minutes wrestling with the system and several calls to a mystery voice of god that tells them that that particular till doesn't work. They then find me and I actually get to pay for my bed.

Mistake no 3: Poor communication & IT support processes.

They then tell me that my items are all in stock - but wait didn't they tell me that my bedside cabinets were out of stock only 2 days ago?

Mistake no 4: Poor stock control and inventory processes

So I finally complete my transaction. Or at least I think so. The staff then take a manual docket pad and write out my receipt. Let me repeat that - THEY WRITE OUT MY RECEIPT. What on earth does their system do if it can't track stock and it can't print a receipt?

Mistake 4: Manual processes due to poor system functionality

So I take my hand written docket and drive to the warehouse. They give me an inaccurate map which gets me lost before I eventually find it. I get there and give my receipt to the chap at the warehouse. He looks at it and asks why I don't have a green slip. I tell him that's all they gave me. He grumbles that as they didn't write it out fully it will take longer to find the stock. He then proceeds to look up the computer and...write out another receipt. Did you get that HE WRITES OUT ANOTHER RECEIPT and gives that to me.

Mistake 5: lack of quality controls to ensure processes are followed

I eventually get all my stuff. It only took me 1.5 hours. But what did it cost Fantastic?

• Phone call - 5 mins
• Staff computer error - 5 mins
• Writing Docket - 2 mins
• Looking up system & re-writing docket - 5 mins

Total "lost" time = 17mins FOR ONE CUSTOMER AND ONE TRANSACTION!!!!

If you think about this in terms of the cost for 17 minutes of staff time multiplied by thousands of transactions you can envisage the amount of money fantastic are throwing away. Of course they could have avoided this entire 17 minute cost if they had an online system. But even if they didn't all they need is to update their system to be able to track stock in real-time and to eliminate the inefficient paper based system that they have become accustomed to. This would allow online tracking, reduce admin costs, control stock flow more efficiently and reduce customer touch time to allow their staff to concentrate on selling rather than performing laborious admin.

Fantastic, the Ninja has spoken. Please stop throwing your money away.

Has the time come to fix your band-aid processes?

We have one of those hot water taps at work where you press the button and you get instant hot water.

Well this week it broke and after 3 days no-one seems to be able to fix it. In the meantime half of the floor have to trudge to the kitchen on the other side of the floor every time they want a cup of tea or lunch, etc.

I set about calculating the productivity cost of this and it goes like this:

50 Staff

3 visits to the kitchen per day on average

$50 per hour average staff cost

3 days of no tap.

15 seconds extra time (each way) or half a minute.

Total cost = $189 over 3 days.

Now this isn't a lot of money, but it shows how a simple break in normal process can add extra cost. Over time we often find breaks in process that are patched up. These "workarounds" or "band-aid" solutions often are simply adopted as long term solutions.

What if we never fixed the hot water tap? What would it cost per year? 

$15,750.

Now just think about all those band-aid solutions that your company might have put in place over the years that have remained - and think about the true cost to your organisation.

Is it time to peel back those temporary fixes and cure the processes for good?

Using your iPhone to save time and money at the supermarket - a review of Shopper by MidCentury Software

After my recent post about how to save money and reduce time spent at the supermarket I decided to have a look online at the apple web store to see if there was anything that could improve the efficiency of my shopping process (after all, a paper template is so 1985).

Lo and behold I found an app called Shopper  by MidCentury Software which is specifically designed to help make your grocery shopping experience faster, more efficient and even help you to save money (although this part of it takes a bit of work). 

Having used it yesterday I can say that this is a truly fantastic little app. It allows you to either select items from a series of "categories" or to add your own items and assign them to categories. You can even add photos and prices to the items (adding prices lets you see how much your shop will be prior to doing it so you can budget more effectively). The thing that I like most about it, however is the ability to drag and drop the categories into the same order as at your supermarket - this makes the whole process really efficient.

To summarise: if you are the person in your household who does the weekly grocery shopping and you own an iPhone, you simply must buy this application. At only $3.99 (AU) it's as cheap as chips and will save you time and money when you go to buy those chips...

Has my iPhone improved my life?

I wrote an article a few months back called "Will an iPhone improve my life" There was some heated discussion from both camps on it but in the end I decided to buy one. It has been a few months since I got it so it's time to look at what it has done to improve my life from an efficiency and process point of view:

Consolidation.  I no longer use a phone and an iPod. I can now sell my iPod and generate some cash and I am also using less electricity (which is good for the planet).

Flexibility. I can pretty much do anything from anywhere now as I have the web and e-mail at my fingertips. The web access and e-mail on my old Nokia was so painful to use I never did.

Information. Not only can I look up anything in a few seconds, my contacts are always up to date as they synchronise over some mysterious cloud thing onto my phone...

Synchronisation. The iphone syncs everything "over the cloud"  - Calendars, contacts, web bookmarks, etc. My wife also has an iphone so if she adds a contact or an event to the calendar it syncs with our mac at home and my iphone so we can be really efficient at organising our time (with 3 kids under 3 you need to be organised!)

Efficiency. Having the GPS saves heaps of time (I'm forever getting lost) and helps you to find things you need that are near by. I find my bank's ATM locator application really handy. The camera on the iphone is really good quality - I use it for taking photos of work I have drawn on whiteboards (process maps, etc.) then I simply e-mail them to my desk. People I work with seem to find this highly impressive although I don't really understand why.

I was amazed to see that there are already 25,000 applications available for the iphone. This is one of the great things about it - that people are continually developing new applications. Anything is possible it seems and already there are some fantastic apps to improve productivity.

So yes, the iPhone has improved my life - and it will continue to improve my life as new applications are developed. It's going to help me organise my time better, be more productive and keep everything in sync.

But let's not forget one very important thing: it's also bloody good fun.

A Process Joke

It's pretty rare to find a joke with a process theme so I thought I'd share this with you...

A lesson on how consultants can make a difference in an organization.

Last week, we took some friends to a new restaurant, 'Steve's Place,' and noticed that the waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket.

It seemed a little strange. When the busboy brought our water and utensils, I observed that he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket.

Then I looked around and saw that all the staff had spoons in their pockets. When the waiter came back to serve our soup I inquired, 'Why the spoon?'

'Well, 'he explained, 'the restaurant's owner hired Andersen Consulting to revamp all of our processes. After several months of analysis, they concluded that the spoon was the most frequently dropped utensil. It represents a drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per hour.

If our personnel are better prepared, we can reduce the number of trips back to the kitchen and save 15 man-hours per shift.'

As luck would have it, I dropped my spoon and he replaced it with his spare. 'I'll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making an extra trip to get it right now.' I was impressed.

I also noticed that there was a string hanging out of the waiter's fly.

Looking around, I saw that all of the waiters had the same string hanging from their flies. So, before he walked off, I asked the waiter, 'Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that string right there?'

'Oh, certainly!' Then he lowered his voice. 'Not everyone is so observant. That consulting firm I mentioned also learned that we can save time in the restroom.

By tying this string to the tip of our you-know-what, we can pull it out without touching it and eliminate the need to wash our hands, shortening the time spent in the restroom by 76.39%.

I asked quietly, 'After you get it out, how do you put it back?'

'Well,' he whispered, 'I don't know about the others, but I use the spoon.'

What a chef can teach you about process and efficiency

In a previous incarnation I used to own a cafe. I never ceased to be amazed by the chefs that worked for me. Here we would be on a Saturday lunchtime, packed to the gunnels and one chef would be churning out food for all these people. So what did I learn from them?

Preparation:

From when they came in in the morning, if they weren't cooking food they were preparing the ingredients for the dishes.

 

Forecasting:

The chefs were always planning ahead - what will I need to order next? What is running out?

Quality:

The chefs were the first to tell me if an ingredient wasn't good enough or if a staff member wasn't pulling his / her weight.

Co-ordination:

As a chef you need to have multiple dishes ready at the same time. They did this by having all their ingredients ready and then starting the longest cooking dish first. It's like they had multiple egg timers in their heads!

Economies of scale:

By using the same ingredient across the menu in different dishes we were able to save money by ordering bigger quantities and reduce wastage by using up ingrediants quicker.

Procedures:

When a new chef came on board they used our operations manual to transfer knowledge to the new chef quickly and to maintain consistency.

Discipline:

Chefs are born into hard working almost military environments where they learn to have a tough skin, take orders and do what they are told. The kind of whinging and crying that goes on in offices would not be tolerated in a kitchen. Chefs learn discipline and hard work from day 1.

Now ask yourself - how your staff match up to these characteristic and (more importantly) if they don't match up, what are you going to do about it?

How to save money and reduce time spent at the supermarket

Craig from The Process Executive asked me about my fabled "supermarket template" that I speak of in my posts so as a process tragic I feel compelled to share this with the world!

But before I go into that I want to take you through the entire shopping process, including how to save some precious dollars!

In the past my wife and I were terrible shoppers – we would simply amble around the supermarket throwing whatever we fancied in our trolley. We ended up spending staggerring amounts on food that sat in cupboards for all eternity and fruit and veg that ended up in the bin. By following a few simple steps we have not only slashed our grocery bills, but we save time at the supermarket so we can spend it in better ways!

Planning

Every week my wife and I have a quick chat about what we'd like to eat for the week.We only plan dinners as I take my food to work (another good way to save money) and my wife usually makes something at home.  As we are a busy family with 3 kids under 3 (and two cats!) we try to identify dinners that are easy to make.

Note: We have found a great book called 4 ingredients which I highly recommend for busy people.

We plan our dinners Mon-Fri as on Sat we usually have take-away and by Sunday we find that there are usually leftovers from take-away or dinners from the last few days.

This planning helps us to focus on exactly what we need for the week. It also helps us to focus on expenditure - when you lay it all out on paper you might see that having salmon then lamb then prawns in one week might be a bit expensive! - so we usually have a more expensive type of meat once a week and no more. We do love a bit of meat, but we mix it up each week (no not literally!) with fish, chicken and a vegetarian dish or two.

We check the recipes and check in the cupboards to see what ingedients we need and these ingredients are added to the shopping template...this way we only buy what we need.

The Shopping Template

I got so familiar by going to the supermarket every week that I found myself remembering visually where the items werein the store. However, when I wrote my lists I didn’t always get the order right and I found myself having to go back to other aisles to pick things up – very inefficient! However I noticed that at the end of each aisle at the supermarket there was a little index card that listed all the aisles and their contents. When I went home I e-mailed the supermarket and asked them if it was possible to send me a copy of it. Lo and behold they sent me a copy in excel format which I was able to reformat so that I had a list of products in aisle order. I then went through this list and added all the products that we usually buy to create a list that would act as a template. So when we run out of something we really need or when we plan our menus it gets written straight onto the supermarket template – then it’s off to the shops…

At the supermarket

Now that I am armed with my completed template I simply cross off the items as I pick them up. As everything is in the correct order there is no doubling back (wasted time) to pick things up. Having a list also helps to stop impulse shopping (our rule is only to buy what’s on the list) – so this also saves money.

When I buy items I rarely stick to specific brands (except maybe for Heinz tomato ketchup!) as this allows more flexibility to pick things up on special. I usually try to scan for specials but I am always wary that even though an item is on special it may not be the cheapest option (saying that sometimes it can be a false economy to buy the cheapest). If you can – use unit based pricing to do a more accurate analysis. However I am always wary of “buy 2 for X$” offers. Remember – only buy what you need. Ask yourself – “if I buy this special offer this week will it save me from buying it next week”.

I also stack similar items in my trolley together each time. This means that similar items e.g. frozen goods stay together when they are placed onto the checkout, which means that they will be together in the same bag when I get home which makes it faster to unpack them and put them away.

Make it a habit

Try to go to the supermarket a few different times before you settle upon a regular time to go. Items usually go on special at particular times of the week. If you can identify when this happens then you can save yourself some more money (talk to the staff at the meat and bread counters – they may provide some inside knowledge!)

I go to the supermarket once a week. I choose this period because my fruit and veg will stay good for up to a week. I spend about an hour.

I go to the supermarket once a week. I choose this period because my fruit and veg will stay good for up to a week. I spend about an hour doing it which I think is pretty good for a whole family. This process may seem a bit extreme to some people but it saves me money, time and gets me back to where I want to be – with my family.