Three MU’s

1. Muda – Waste
2. Mura – Variation
3. Muri – Burdensome

The Seven Deadly Wastes

1. Overproduction Waste – This occurs due to failure of production planning when money is
blocked in the unsold product. When the programming language Java was popular before the
bursting of dot COM bubble, an ambitious book supplier stocked large volume of Java books.
When there was a change in requirement and many copies were not sold, he had to close down
the organization. Therefore, overproduction is very harmful. Just-in-time (JIT) is the right
approach. But practicing JIT needs a healthy organization practicing Kaizen.
2. Waste Due to Waiting – Work-In-Progress (WIP) is a direct measure of quality of the
organization. A product is nearly completed but waiting for a particular part to arrive from
another country. Hence the product cannot be shipped. This is WIP and an example of waste due
to waiting. This can occur at any stage of manufacturing due to poor planning, organizing as well
as lack of dynamism in making alternate arrangement when a particular man, machine or material
is not available due to unforeseen circumstances. The process layout and production should be
such that the flow is continuous and neither a machine nor an operator is waiting for something.
3. Transportation – Unnecessary transportation is waste. Therefore, every assembly line should be
under one roof preferably. The plant layout should be organized such that there is no back and
forth movement anywhere. If there is no conveyor, the goods or semi-finished products should be
transported using trolleys or carts. But the distance traveled should be kept at the minimum.
4. Processing Waste – The machinery should be kept in smooth working condition by periodic and
preventive maintenance to eliminate processing waste. If a process is held up due to breakdown
of the machinery, money is lost. Furthermore, appropriate tools and fixtures should be provided
so that the time taken for manufacturing is optimum. The design of the product should be such as
to enable easy manufacturability, testability and maintenance.
5. Inventory Waste – Supply chain management should be such that there are no excess materials.
Similarly, the organization should produce exact number of every part. Sometimes they produce a
little more to take care of eventualities. Even such extra items can become huge in due course of
time, necessitating selling them as a scrap. In the stores also reorder level should be fixed for
every item on scientific basis to avoid dead stock. The poor housekeeping can lead to valuable
items lying on some cupboards unnoticed. Every part should be accounted to avoid inventory
waste.
6. Waste of Motion – As Watts Humphrey says, the purpose of driving is to reach the destination
on time and not to spin the wheel. This happens if the person does not have the map. Similarly, if
the workers are not trained in their job properly, there will be a lot of motion but no work.
Searching for things, non-availability of the correct tools, not monitoring the running machine
etc. can cause wastage of lot of time. The objective of the organization should be to add value by
every motion of the employee and machinery.
7. Product Defects – The defective parts or supplies cause loss of money. Not only that, managing
the scrap causes unnecessary work like, safe custody, accounting, disposal as well as cause strain
 on the space available for good manufacturing. Thus eliminating scrap through zero defects is the
only solution to the problem.

Business Process Reengineering (BPR)

BPR – BPR is undertaken essentially to result in a quantum jump in performance of processes. BPR is
synonymous with innovation because it is more than just automating or applying Information Technology
to the existing processes or operations. It will bring in benefits to all the stakeholders of the organization.
Very high achievements are expected out of BPR. For instance, expectations are as high as 50 per cent
reduction in design cycle time in case of R&D projects, 60 to 80 per cent reduction in total cost of
manufacture reduction of delivery time from a month to a day! BPR exploits the unexploited potentials of
the organization. A test laboratory was committing five working days for the completion of every
calibration job, when its peers were committing two weeks to a month’s time for the same activity. They
learnt from its customers that a competitor was taking a day’s time for the calibration of such equipment.
Then they decided to achieve such a cycle time. They planned and implemented a scheme by which they
take only 8 hours for the calibration jobs. This is an example of applying business process reengineering.

BPR is “the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic
improvement in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, services and
speed”.

A dramatic improvement can take place only when the change in the process is radical and bold. Dramatic
improvements will only help the organization to leapfrog in performance or achievements. Rightly, BPR
calls for dramatic improvements in critical and contemporary measures of performance such as quality,
cost, service and speed. The objective of BPR is to reduce the cost of maintaining quality, improving
service features and delivering the products and services fast.

Fundamental Rethinking

Dramatic improvements can take place through elimination of redundant operations, unnecessary
operations and operation, which add cost, but, not value the products and services. BPR is an opportunity
for innovative person to decide, after due considerations, which processes are redundant and make a
recommendation accordingly to the management. Then, the management will take a final decision to
eliminate the process.

Radical Design

Dramatic improvements cannot be achieved only through fundamental rethinking. It calls for design of
new processes. Some service organizations take 15 days to respond to an enquiry through fax. This is
mainly because of the redundant system established in the organization. Therefore, in order to reply to a
query in half an hour time, the redundant processes, processes that inhibit quick action and need
unnecessary approvals etc. should be dispensed with. The reengineering team should question
fundamentally the necessity to follow the existing procedures or methods or use of machinery and should
not care to throw all of them and start afresh. Only then, dramatic improvements can take place.
How to Carry out Reengineering?

The step involved in BPR are similar to those in TQM. However in reengineering, much bigger results are
expected and not incremental improvemets.

The five phases of reengineering cycle are given below:

1. Planning
2. Process Study
3. Study of the best pratices
4. Redesign
5. Implementation

This cycle repeats itself whenever the management wants dramatic improvements in the performance of
the organization. Reengineering does not fit in Kaizen. However, reengineering may be called for
occasionally to make quick and dramatic improvements in the process.

Information Technology

Some consultants give an impression that BPR means application of Information Technology (IT) only.
No doubt, application of IT will help in improvement of productivity, efficiency and quality of the work.
However, IT alone cannot result in dramatic improvement. IT has to be integrated into the redesigned
process skillfully and logically. Simply buying computers and asking people to make use of it, will not
improve the performance. The computer should be used where it is possible. Since, IT can reduce the
monotony of people, the reengineering team can try to explore application where it could be gainfully
employed. The most difficult part in reengineering projects is the intelligent way of understanding the
current practices and finding innovative new methods. IT is only a part of the new method. This should be
clearly understood. IT can be applied not only in reengineered processes, but also in the continuing
processes. The investment in IT is certainly worth it, provided the managers know where to use and how
to make people learn the techniques of using them for day-to-day operations. Therefore, the emphasis is
in finding out innovative processes and by the way using IT and certainly not the other way round i.e
redesigning the process only to use IT in spite of no visible benefits.

BPR AND TQM

The aim of BPR is to make dramatic improvement in quality. There is a lot of debate as to whether BPR
is an alternative to TQM. Some proponents feel that TQM is outdated and BPR will replace TQM
altogether. There are a lot of misconceptions about BPR, vis-a-vis TQM is not only continuous
improvement, but, has many other facets as given in the various chapters. BPR is one of the tools to
achieve TQM as discussed in this section.

The two approaches namely TQM and BPR neither contradicts nor compliments each other because they
are two parts of the same approach. AT&T illustrates this well in its reengineering handbook, which
poists business reengineering as a fundamental component of total quality approach. Therefore, total
quality is an objective, TQM is a means to achieve it and BPR is an important tool within the TQM
technology. This observation makes the relationship between TQM and BPR crystal clear. While BPR is
a tool, TQM is an umbrella concept involving many other strategies.