CROSSFIRE
It ’ s Not That Complex : Just Standardize !
By Herman Githinji
I know life is all about seasons and contrasts . There is winter and summer , day and night , joy and sadness , and lack and abundance . All these are natural variations , and they ' re good .
In Japanese Kaizen , there are three things they eliminate for continuous improvement . They are Muda ( waste ), Muri ( overburden ), and Mura ( variation or unevenness ). So , it ' s not all the time that variations are good ; our minds know that . When you repeatedly do something , the mind registers that as a new way or standard of doing it . After that , the mind resists any variation .
I used to drop the kids to school every morning before going to work . So they would all sit at the back of the car . The school was just a few blocks away from my house and my workplace a bit further away . While in the car , there wasn ' t much talking . The kids would settle to finish the last bits of their homework , and I would immediately start thinking about my morning plans .
One morning , the schools were closed , but I still got into the car and drove up to the school gate . I looked back , and this time , no one was coming out of the vehicle . I was operating on autopilot mode . The mind hates Mura .
Well , I got to my workplace safely and on time , but I would have been there earlier had I not taken an unnecessary detour to the kids ' school .
At work , my main plan that day was to streamline operations . I worked for Unga Holdings , Uganda , as the General Manager . At that time , I was still figuring out the appropriate sales structure to support sales growth and long-term sustenance . We had over one hundred customers , both retailers , and wholesalers across Uganda . As it usually happens , most of them would show up at our gates any day , without prior notice , and demand products .
When plotted in a graph , daily sales trends would look more of a spaghetti shape than
You must organize your customers to serve them better . Trying to accommodate all customers ' abrupt demands may score high in terms of customer responsiveness but miserably fail in overall cost reduction , inefficiencies , and customer complaints . anything else . In there were all the 3M Kaizen sisters - Muri , Mura , and Muda . The problem was that we would get lots of orders one day , and then the next day , we would get absolutely nothing . How do you plan to serve customers who show up without notice ?
That created immense operational waste and confusion . We had to continually carry high stocks and all other resources to fill those impromptu orders . We also could hire extra casual in the busy day , hire additional trucks to bring supplementary raw materials , move things like mad in the busy day , creating lots of complaints in the process . In contrast , the very next day , everything would be quiet and all resources idle .
The problem most companies face is trying to become some magician and attempting to serve varying demands just because they don ' t want to lose business . I went to a particular serene hotel in Nyeri . The place was just new , and the owner was excited with the responses he was getting . But in one December holiday , hundreds of customers suddenly turned up at the gate . The owner didn ' t want to turn anyone away , so he allowed them in . Six hundred customers were scrambling in a hotel made to host only three hundred customers . And as you would expect , that was a recipe for chaos . He was overwhelmed , customers complained , and he lost an invaluable chance to impress .
At Unga , Uganda , I had to get a solution ; otherwise , the company can ' t operate in a zig-zag and make any money . When we
06 MAL43 / 21 ISSUE