Insights
Why Manufacturers Should Not Automate Waste
If a process is slow because it has extra steps, automating it only makes the extra steps happen faster. That is not improvement.
Seth SagerJuly 14, 20266 min read
Process improvement
Lean taught this decades ago. The principle has not changed because the tools have.
Before you connect a workflow to a model, a bot, or an integration, walk the process. Ask what would happen if a step disappeared. Ask who actually uses the output. Ask where the delay really is.
Often the delay is not computation. It is a handoff. A missing owner. A decision that no one is authorized to make. A spreadsheet that exists because two systems do not agree.
Those are process problems. They should be solved as process problems.
Speed is not the same as flow
A buyer who sends follow-up emails faster is still doing follow-up email. A planner who refreshes six reports in two minutes instead of twenty still starts the day by assembling a picture the systems already have.
The better question is whether that work should exist in its current form. If the answer is no, automation will lock the waste in place and make it harder to see.
- Remove steps that exist only because information is hard to find.
- Clarify who decides, and with what inputs.
- Define what “done” looks like before you build anything.
- Then connect the remaining work into a system that is faster, clearer, and easier to measure.
Automate the value. Do not scale the waste.
What process does your team hate doing?
If a process takes too long, requires repetitive work, depends on scattered information, or repeatedly creates problems, it may be a good place to start.