Reduce Unique ICDs by Redesigning the Product or the Process

The objective of this activity is to reduce the number of ICDs by reducing the occurrence of an ICD in producing a unit of Output, or by reducing the number of separate ICDs used in the Output. A unique ICD is one of the key activities in the work center's contribution to the final product (O). It is separate and distinct from any other activity in the work center. For example, the fastening of a part onto a subassembly and a quality control check of the subassembly would be unique ICDs.

B. Redesign the process of producing the ICD or Output

Change the process used to produce the ICD or Output to eliminate activities.

8. Accept risk oflower profits

Accept the potential of higher costs:
Produce more frequently

No.	Industry SIC	Year	Notes
1	2000	2004	In production, high performing companies strive to increase efficiency by doing things such as shortening the time needed to change dyes in a production line. They manufacture products more frequently, thus improving their delivery times and lowering their finished-goods inventory. These methods are borrowed from lean-manufacturing programs.
2	3585	1994	GE scrapped elaborate long-term forecasting. 4 of its 8 plants now make every model, every day, often in lots as small as 50. Inventories have fallen dramatically.
3	8071	2006	Hospitals are moving to cut dangerous lab errors through improved specimen collection and efficiency. In January 2005, after completing training in the Toyota production techniques, Detroit's Henry Ford Health System started a pilot to speed up specimen-processing time in the surgical pathology lab, moving racks that load slides on a machine nine feet closer so technicians didn't have to walk back and forth so often, and processing smaller batches of slides every 20 minutes instead of waiting for the 60 slides necessary to fill the machines.

<<Return to Reduce Unique ICDs in Process