Reducing excess motion by going lean
All process have steps…and some of these steps may be a waste of time, and money. Talking steps reminded me of the electrician who came by to fit a new ceiling fan. During his work, he needed a tester, screwdriver, pliers, insulating tape, pair of scissors, etc. at some time or another. Every time he needed a tool, he would climb down 4 steps from the top of the ladder and climb back to the top after retrieving it from his tool kit on the floor. He had an impressive array of tools in the kit – but what he lacked most was a tool belt. One that could have saved him having to mount / dismount over 60 steps on the ladder...apart from the omnipresent dangers of a mis-step. Had he charged by the hour, I would be paying for wasted time (my time).
How often have you observed managers in restaurants and hotels running hither and fro putting out small fires? They do this daily, without attempting to solve the obvious symptoms of a recurring problem. How much more efficient would the business be, If only, some of them took time to pause, stand back, recognise and identify the root cause of the problem? A few managers who do exactly that are the ones who have taken a leaf or more from the book of lean management.
The origins of lean management sprang from a simple concept based on the philosophy that customers should pay for value and not for mistakes or waste. In order to maximise profit, companies need to increase the value of their product or services. Lean management provides an opportunity to drive up value whilst promoting continuous improvement.
So why is ‘Lean Thinking’ not more prevalent in the hospitality industry?
Managers who have overseen operations for years and treated customers in ways they have found and believe to be most useful, fear that if their processes are shown up as flawed and then changed, it may hinder their controlling styles of management – especially those that follow a ‘command and control’ approach. To them ‘lean’ poses a threat to their way of doing things. In some organizations, managers are not accustomed to seeking feedback and asking for input from subordinates. Lean thrives on obtaining feedback and advice from the bottom upward.
Glen Bunker – a lean ‘mentor’ talks of 7 types of waste that he identifies using the principles of lean management. They are: overproduction, waiting, transporting, inappropriate processing, unnecessary inventory, excess motion and defects. Of the seven, Gary finds addressing ‘wasted motion’ his favourite fix, and, recalls the time he once moved a piece of machinery (about 50 feet) at an automobile manufacturing plant and saved his client US$ 30,000 a year in wasted steps. One might ask ‘can something like this apply in a restaurant?’ For sure it can. Ask Gary who runs a restaurant in Wisconsin.
Gary who was interested in lean thinking and about mapping out the actual steps in a given process, began looking around his own restaurant for ways to save steps. He soon spotted an obvious one to start with. It was at the waiter station. When Gary first opened the restaurant, there was only one soda dispenser (a device that dispenses carbonated soft drinks of several flavours), at the bar. Also at the bar, a few feet away were the iced tea urns. As business grew, a second soda dispenser was installed. This one was placed at the rear waiter station. Pint glasses used used for soda and iced tea were stored near the soda machine when it was installed.
So waiters needed to take 5-6 steps (3 towards the glasses and 3 to the soda machine) for every glass of soda ordered. Gary thought to himself “Heck it is only 3 additional steps” at that time, until Glen’s story about re-locating the machinery in the auto plant came to mind. Gary calculated the number of sodas sold every day, timed how many seconds it took the waiter to make the 6 step trip, did the math and discovered that he was spending $ 200 every year if the process went unaltered.
Having taken the premises on a 10 year lease, that calculated to a lot of money – doing nothing. Furthermore, 16 hours of labour that could have been focused on improving the customer experience was lost thru wasteful shuffling to and fro. Using lean management techniques Gary was also able to reduce staff frustration, eventually cutting annual employee turnover by 28%.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, “Hospitality Sri Lanka’, Consultant, Trainer, Ex- Hotelier.
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