Re-energise your Business - Remove sources of Friction and Delay

Sometimes delays are important, but if you're not adding value, then it is not good. Some level of friction and delay are prevalent in virtually every business. Depending on what you are trying to achieve, they are not automatically bad things. There are times when deliberately slowing down (introducing delay to) an activity is the right thing to do. But where they are a result of poorly evolved processes, lack of training or resources, or lack of knowledge - it's time to take action and remove them from your life!

How can we define Friction and Delay? Friction is whatever gets in the way of a smooth and uninterrupted flow of events. Think of sliding along a bench covered in sandpaper versus one covered with oil. Delay is adding time without adding value. High levels of these in any business are expensive, leading to lower productivity, and higher costs.

Why do businesses tolerate these levels of friction and delay'

They are considered a cost of doing business.
Many business owners don't know or realize that there is another way of doing things - a way that could really improve their business

The business suffers from inertia when it comes to improvements.
Inefficiencies cause significantly lower productivity as employees create workarounds to get the job done. Over time, the workarounds become the accepted process, and the opportunity for taking action on the source of the problem is forgotten

Too much time is wasted on dealing with the symptoms.
Many owners spend tremendous time and energy dealing with the results of delay and friction in their organizations without striking at the cause of the problems

They don't know what to do.
Often when owners do identify the cause of friction and delay, they do not know how to reduce or eliminate the friction and delay

So how do you identify areas of delay and friction? Ask people what drives them crazy about their job. Ask people what they know irritates their customers, both external and internal customers. Ask them what they are tolerating. Ask people where they waste the most time. Note: don't confuse busy-ness with business. Look for things that are taking time and energy away from the main goals. Ask customers (or have people ask their customers): What are we doing that is causing friction for you? What are we doing that is causing you delay, frustration or confusion?

Look for work piling up in front of some resource or person.
Typically that's a sign of a bottleneck that is causing friction and delay for the business overall. Observe people as they do their work. What are they wasting time doing? Note: this can be applied at all levels of the organization! Participate in process mapping session - map out the suspect process with the people who do the work.

Now that you've identified the sources of friction and delay, how do you go about removing them?

1. Eliminate the step.
If it doesn't add value, just don't do it.

2. Streamline the step.
Are there parts of the step that don't add value? Can it be done a better smarter way? Hint: the people doing the work most often know what would help most.

3. Increase the throughput at the bottleneck.
- Consider increasing capacity - longer shifts, more machines, additional employees. - Consider outsourcing some or all of the work - can be external or internal to business. - Consider automating the process. Special Note: automate the process only AFTER making sure that the process works! This may sound trivial, but more money has been wasted by small (and large) businesses automating processes that were broken in the first place so that more mistakes were made quicker at higher cost.

4. Slow the entire system to the natural flow.
This may sound counter-intuitive, but it prevents having to do things over, and accentuates the need to improve bottlenecks. Doing things right the first time eliminates error and rework, reducing the cost to the business.

Finally, because all businesses are dynamic and people are human, friction and delay can creep back into your business pretty easily. Develop a mindset of continuous improvement and harness the abilities of everyone in your business to always be looking for ways to do things differently or better.

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