Removing waste from your process allows you to be more productive.

Higher productivity leads to higher profits.

Below is the mapping of my intake process, from last week.  I’ll use italics to show where the wastes are and a plus sign to show a necessary step or one that adds value.  In the photo, I used pink sticky notes to show where wastes occur.

Bring items into house:  +

Unpack them upstairs:  We work on the items and store them downstairs, so there is no need to unpack them upstairs.  (Extra Processing)

Bring them downstairs:  Double handling.  (Motion)

Put them in a flat:   There is no specific place for “processing” items, so we place them in cardboard flats that can be moved around.  (Extra Processing)

Find a place for the flat:  Any flat surface that’s available:  Trying to find a spot.  (Waiting)   Having to move flats repeatedly, because they were set in the way of something else.  (Motion)

Remove price tags:  Can’t always remember what the price was when it is time to list the item.   (Defect)

Wash items: +

Look for damage:  +

Take photos:  Less than optimum photos: Poor lighting, wrong type of background, surface not large enough.  (Defect)

Put items back in flat:  Another chance to damage something.  (Motion)(Defect)

Move the flat to the office:  We can both work on listing items, but items have to be moved to another room.  (Motion)(Extra Processing)

Place the flat on the floor:  Lots of carrying and bending.  (Motion)  Flats could get kicked or bumped.  (Defect)

List items on eBay:   +

Place items on warehouse shelves (where ever they fit).  This creates a mess and we spend lots of time looking for items when they sell.  This also affects our shipping process.  (Waiting)(Motion)

As you can see, most of our wastes come from moving things around and taking numerous chances at damaging them.

There it is…the truth hurts a little, but it also creates an exciting challenge; mapping the future!

Stop back next week when we start brainstorming on way to improve our process!