Wasteful operations at Motorola, Catalina, and PTI
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Question 2 (a)
Large companies such as Motorola, Catalina, and PTI perform wasteful operations at times. In fact, waste has become an issue for most retail operations recently, given the ever-increasing need to pack and unpack growing numbers of distinct items. Such items are then displayed and packaged in a way that clients will appreciate. CalRecycle, which usually considers reduction, reuse, as well as recycle as companies set up their packaging, calls for attractive, but wasteful packaging. As for the reduction, CalRecycle will encourage companies to request the suppliers to provide products with excessive packaging and to recycle whatever materials they can. Additionally, companies usually give their customers the option of having what they purchase bagged. They may also offer a discount to customers that come with their own bags. This has been shown to entice customers greatly.
Some wasteful operations such as spending many resources on attractive packaging have an advantage. Initially there are not many returns, but overall the company may get good returns in the long term. One major step in lean is the identification of the steps that add value and those that do not. When one classifies all these activities into two broad categories, it becomes possible to initiate actions that can improve the former while attempting to eliminate the latter. Most of these suggestions may appear quite 'idealist.' However, this tough claim is seen as significant to the effectiveness of that key step. When the actual work (value-adding work) is isolated from waste, the latter is then subdivided into auxiliary work (needs to be done). The identification of work that does not add value to that which does is critical to the identification of the beliefs and assumptions behind the work process and to the challenge of such aspects in due course.
The phrase ‘learning to see’ is derived from an ever-increasing ability to view waste in places institutions did not perceive it before. Numerous researchers, in a bid to develop this concept, have made trips to Japan in an attempt to be in Toyota, where they can see the distinction between Toyota’s operations and the thirty-year old TPS. Most of the PTI techniques function similarly. The question of waste emerges immediately into focus on elements that prohibit plans from being implemented. This can be achieved by planning to rationalize labor, decrease changeover times, shorten campaign lengths, or decrease lot sizes. It is in the area of operations rather than that of the process where mud can be discarded and the blockage to a plan removed. A variety of tools methodologies can be employed on such wastes to eradicate or reduce them.
Such a plan usually involves building a fast and flexible system where the impact is to decrease waste and cut costs. The improvement is locked in and necessary for the process to work through ratcheting of the process towards a given aim. Without such intent to create an efficient, flexible process there arises, significant risk that any improvement made will be unsustainable because they are desirable and can go back towards earlier behaviors with the process running unabated.
In conclusion, these companies give focus on participation in wasteful operations. The former CEO of Toyota claimed that waste might account for up to 90 percent. This executive identified and formalized the 7 waste types. Through the recent efforts of Jones and Womack, however, an eighth item has been added. Wasteful operations sometimes become part of the practices with which major companies struggle because it is not easy to eliminate all the costs. Though the cost is increased, there is an ultimate increase in the returns in the long term.