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.

C. Eliminate customer activities with low value to the customer

Reduce ICDs by eliminating activities for which customers either will not pay or will not pay enough to cover their costs.

2. Products and services

Products producing losses: Due to high costs:
Competition with more focused cost structure

No. Industry SIC Year Notes
1 2300 1992 Gerber will reduce cloth diaper business drastically. Cloth cutback will eliminate jobs. Gerber can't compete because of high labor costs and a business system that depends on volume sales.
2 3639 1987 In February, GE donated RCA Corp's RCA Labs to SRI International. Although the lab had a staff of 1200 and an annual budget of $88 million, GE considered much of its research redundant.
3 4512 2005 Delta Air Lines has confirmed plans to shut Song, its innovative, low-cost airline subsidiary, and has pledged to incorporate many of Song's best features into Delta's main U.S. Operations. The decision to combine the two brands into one was made because while Song was helping Delta hold its own against competitors such as JetBlue, which offers similar all-coach seating, corporate and other high-revenue travelers wanted first-class cabins. The combination is also supposed to help Delta save on advertising costs.
4 4512 2004 United Airlines is boosting international flight capacity by 14% with their plans to come out of bankruptcy court protection from creditors. They will be focusing on Asia. They plan on cutting domestic capacity excluding Hawaii by 14%.
5 4512 2004 United has begun capitulating to discount airlines in the coach-cabin seat market and has taken 35% of its seat capacity out of those markets.
6 4512 2004 Continental was the first of the major airlines that tried to copy Southwest's point-to point low-cost strategy. The impetus for this strategy came from Continental's desire to get out of its money-losing Denver hub and culminated in moving nearly 80 planes and 200 plus flights from Denver to the Southeast in less than nine months.
7 5331 1993 Kmart announced it would close 3 of its Pace Warehouse stores & sell 14 others to Wal-Mart.

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