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Create value! ....... for whom?

Value creation is central to a Lean organization. Its objective is to create value for its customer, but also for other stakeholders such as shareholders, employees, as well as society through increased profitability and growth.

A lot of work that is carried out does not create value, but rather represents tasks which are to cover for weaknesses in our current system. A focal point within Lean Thinking is to discriminate between time and effort in value creating and non-value creating work (waste).

Traditionally we are trying to optimize value creation in each task. Lean Thinking looks at the complete value stream from "door to door". The advantage of this approach has been proven by the dramatically improved value creation achieved.

To understand the real root cause, and to address it with the correct counter measure, waste is slit in seven types:

Rework (mistakes made in earlier steps of the process)

Overproduction (Producing more or faster than needed)

Movement (Unnecessary movement of people)

Material movement (Unnecessary movement of material/documents)

Waiting (Waiting for processing and/or information)

Inventory or stores (Underutilized space)

Over processing (Doing more than the customer wants)

Underutilized skills and creativity from employees is seen as the eighth type of waste

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