WASTE ELIMINATION ACTIVITIES
Employees as a whole engage in the waste elimination activities.
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Waste is countless in any work environment. In my opinion, thirty percent is waste, and if you eliminate this 30 %, new waste will be found.
To eliminate waste is to save money. For example, provided that you could earn 50,000 yen as a net profit from the sales of one million yen and if you could get rid of waste equivalent to 50,000 yen, it means to attain the sales of one million yen. We have 28 teams in total to tackle every kind of waste in the head office and Shiga plant.
This all started from a talk with a president of a major corporation. When I asked him about the reason of their high profits even in the time of a great recession, he told me that they had been tackling to eliminate waste. I also came to know that there was a company of which one division had taken in this activity and became only one that increased profits among many divisions in that company. Impressed by these stories, we began to seriously address waste issues three years ago.
One point about noticing waste is to ask ourselves “Do we really need this?”.
By thinking or asking like “Why do we need this?” and “Is this really necessary for our business?” in daily work to where you seldom give a second thought, we can find a lot of waste. |
Report on the War on Waste
We got successful results both in the first and second year by making waste issues more visible in the respective areas and by getting whole employees to be involved for tackling. In the third year, too, we are continuing asking ourselves like “Why do we need this?” and “Is this really necessary for our business?” to identify and eliminate waste.
| First year (FY08) | Second year (FY09) | Third year (FY10) |
First year (FY08) |
Team Name |
Theme |
Goal |
M1 |
Material waste |
Reduce material waste during processing |
M4 |
Shipping material waste |
Improve shipping materials to enable adoption of one way |
M5 |
Shipping/return transport cost waste |
•Eliminate shipping waste, optimize shipping costs (lowest price)
•Eliminate logistics route waste, devise efficient shipping method |
M6 |
Disposable item/jig waste |
•Reduce inventory amount through central purchasing, sharing, and re-grinding
•Establish a bidding system to procure at the lowest price |
M7 |
Disposable item/jig purchasing method waste |
M9 |
Energy waste |
All members will think about energy waste, devise ways to save energy, and spread them throughout the company |
M10 |
Space waste |
Review slow-moving stock and idle equipment, eliminate wasted space in company stock, reduce costs for external storage |
Total yearly saved amount (unit: yen): 65,014,000 |
Second year (FY09) |
Team Name |
Theme |
Goal |
M13 |
Disposable item/jig waste (continued from M6/M7) |
Reduced overall disposable jig costs and effectively utilize jigs by standardizing, sharing, and re-grinding cutting condition tools |
M14 |
Energy waste (continued from M9) |
Make electricity, air, oil, and other energy resources thoroughly easy to understand in order to increase awareness of energy saving in all employees, and create an environment where everyone will feel that we are working to save energy |
M15 |
Outsourced manufacturing unit price waste |
•Create a cost list, implement the appropriate pricing by clarifying unit price standards, and reduce costs
•Reduce costs by using outsourced processed and completed items, and reduce ancillary work |
M16 |
Cycle time waste |
Review processing conditions and reduce die-set change-out times, thereby reducing actual total cycle time. Also, use this as the groundwork for reducing internal processing costs through standardization and lateral development (incl. into other groups). |
M17 |
Paperwork waste |
Eliminate waste from ledgers and forms normally used, as well as interdepartmental paperwork waste |
M19 |
Shipping material/fees waste (continued from M4/M5) |
While taking care that shipping is one way, comprehensively review shipping materials and shipping shape for optimal logistics |
M20 |
Quality inspection waste |
Establish a quality assurance system based on process capabilities and methods, make quality inspection work efficient and simple, and train workers that will be able to control quality. |
M21 |
Logistics waste between TVC and TSP |
Seek efficient distribution between TVC and TSP, implement a continuous streamlining production method when shipping material and receiving products (including ancillary devices) |
Total yearly saved amount (unit: yen): 14,767,000 |
Third year (FY10) |
Team Name |
Theme |
Goal |
M23 |
Disposable item/jig waste |
Re-grinding and burnishing to be done in-house |
M24 |
Energy waste |
Main project is to eliminate air blowers |
M25 |
Logistics waste between TVC and TSP |
Eliminate distribution waste between TVC-TSP, eliminate refill waste |
M27 |
Quality inspection waste |
Focus on improving on start-up loss by speeding up quality inspections |
M28 |
Equipment waste |
Reduce the amount of equipment by improving processes |
Activities are underway |