Six Sigma speaks frequently of eliminating non- value activities and in the last post, I talked about how you can define value in your organization. For this post I want to continue the value discussion and talk about how you define a non-value activity and what the most common types are.  Simply put non-value activities are activities that don’t provide anything for the customer and don’t provide your organization with a competitive advantage.  The best way to think of it is as all flash and no substance.    When looking around your organization’s processes or  staff, you should be concentrating on why things are done; you want to know what  the processes are adding and what kind of blockages they are creating.

The 8 Most Common Types of Non- Value Added Activities

1. Overproduction

2. Excessive Inventory Taskings/Poorly Structured Inventory Processes

3. Defects

4.  Processing Procedures

5. Transportation Procedures

6. Idle Time

7.   Unfocused moves

8.  Staff Shuffling

 

If you can recognize any of these activities within your organization, it’s probably worth it to have a look at where and why the activity is occurring.

 

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