This blog post is part three in a series of blogs focused on reducing waste through effective planning and execution.
In today’s fast-paced manufacturing environment, wasted motion in planning and execution is a critical area that businesses must address to optimize their operations and thrive amidst growing product and network complexity, disruption, and labor shortages. The concept of reducing wasted motion is a key aspect of Lean Manufacturing, focusing on reducing or even eliminating unnecessary movement or actions that don't add value to the production process.
Uncovering wasted motion in planning and execution
While originally focused on reducing waste in production, reducing wasteful motion should not be limited to physical movement on the factory floor. Instead, it spans various departments and includes limiting inefficient processes like:
- Insufficient and disconnected analysis that require users to centralize data in spreadsheets for analysis
- Manually entering or transferring data on extended screens and using excessive key-strokes in disconnected software solutions
- Weak, single variable simulation testing requiring significantly more steps for testing
- Repeatedly replanning forecasts and production plans
- Creating and managing one-off integrations
- Unnecessary data entry in the office, warehouse, yard or beyond
- Excessive walking within warehouses due to non-optimized tasks
- Searching digitally or physically for mismanaged inventory
- Manually phoning, emailing or texting others for updates
Like the factory floor, unnecessary motion in the warehouse—such as excessively long picking routes or repetitive manual tasks—is often visible. However, excessive office team motions, like manually searching for information or copying data between systems and teams, are less obvious, but no less wasteful.
While it is not a cause of wasted motion, an increasing shortage of labor and office teams is exacerbated by wasted motion. It is currently estimated that 1.9 million manufacturing jobs will go unfilled by 2033 if current labor gaps are not closed. Simultaneously, more traditional office opportunities are also impacted, with 26,400 openings projected for logisticians from 2024 to 2024. This 17% growth, cited by the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics, is faster than average for all occupations and “demonstrates the need to replace workers who transfer to different occupations or exit the labor force, such as to retire.”
No longer can companies afford wasted movement. Each person’s time must be maximized—both for their satisfaction and retention, and for the company’s long-term success. Employees cannot lose time moving data, searching for inventory or waiting for half empty loads.
One significant waste comes in the form of gray work, which is the unproductive, manual, and often ad-hoc tasks that employees do to compensate for outdated technology and processes. This includes reliance on poor integrations, spreadsheets, and manual processes that require duplicate or even triplicate data entry. Gray work arises when technology doesn't effectively support business needs, forcing employees to create makeshift solutions or workarounds. This leads to inefficiencies, collaboration barriers, and frustration, ultimately hindering productivity and performance.
Proving this fact, a staggering 59% of working professionals reportedly spend 11+ hours per week chasing information across different platforms and personnel. Meanwhile, workers are overwhelmed by technology with 94% of them reporting feeling overwhelmed by the number of software solutions they need to use every day to get their work done (up from 87% in 2023).
Supply chain planning decisions, cannot be made in a vacuum but must instead be made considering data, such as demand forecasts, available network inventory, warehouse and manufacturing capacity, and current inbound logistics constraints and opportunities. Through this, decisions become more accurate, and time is saved by avoiding manual processes, double data entry, and inaccurate plans.
