When seeking improvements, optimizing processes, and reducing costs, it's common to focus on production areas, as the paradigm prevails that this is where the "cost" of the products manufactured lies.
However, the application of TPM, or even Lean Office as a methodology that seeks to "lean down" and make the organization more flexible, has been demonstrating over the years that, contrary to popular belief, a large part of the cost is "produced" in the administrative or service areas. 
Whether due to excessive bureaucracy, a lack of a continuous flow of clearly defined processes, inadequate installed capacity, or possibly a concentration of decision-making in the hands of too few people, leaving the entire company dependent on their authorization, signature, or general approval; the truth is that administrative areas require analysis and review of their effectiveness as much as, or even more than, the production processes themselves. We know that a single poorly made purchasing decision has secondary effects on extremely high costs.
Yes, the administrative areas are riddled with losses. Or has it ever happened to you that if you want to make progress on an improvement, you have to wait until "someone" higher up sees it, analyzes it, reviews it, asks questions, and finally makes a decision? Or when ordering a spare part, the purchase order often gets "lost" until someone complains and rushes the order. Or if you're searching for information, it takes longer than the required 30 seconds to find the document. We could give many more examples...
How to break the vicious circle?
Obviously, the most advisable approach for each particular case will arise from a diagnosis tailored to the organizational reality. However, from our point of view, the best method for improving the effectiveness of offices and service areas is to understand administrative or support areas as "Information Factories." Viewing them as factories, it's easier to apply concepts that are usually already familiar. For example: Process Design, Methods and Times, Critical Variables, Customer Requirements (internal or external), Autonomous Maintenance, and 5S.
By discovering that we can manage offices as information factories, it becomes more evident that we can implement activities there that eliminate the 8 Big Losses.
Let's look at just a few examples that illustrate the potential for losses to be recovered:
1. Losses due to overproduction
- Teams that focus on low-priority tasks.
- Generating reports that no one reads or that are practically unnecessary
- Making extra copies, whether of documents or emails
- Conduct ineffective meetings
2. Losses due to waiting times
- Due to delays in decision-making
- Due to excessive signatures to approve something
- Due to dependence on others to complete tasks
- Due to delays in receiving necessary information
- Due to lack of clarity of what should be done.
3. Losses due to Movements
- Searching for files on computers
- Carrying and bringing documentation to or from another process
- Searching for documents in the archives
4. Transportation Losses
- Due to lack of organization when transferring required information
- Excess email addresses in the "with copy" field
- Sending unnecessary documents to another process
5. Losses due to overprocessing (extra work)
- When issuing duplicate reports
- Due to excessive document review
- For repeated entry of data and information
- For spreadsheets that contain the same information
- Due to lack of clarity of what is expected to be done
6. Inventory Losses
- Documents awaiting approval
- Excessive backups on PC and paper
- Obsolete files and documents
- Excess office supplies.
7. Losses due to defects
- Incorrect data entry
- Errors in price list
- Loss of records / documents
- Reports that require reworking
8. Losses due to the waste of people
- Necessary skills not considered in the selection
- Under-utilized people
- Missed deadlines that delay other work teams
- Inadequate performance management system
- Stress due to lack of focus, overwork, or inadequate skills
Some questions will help design an improvement plan:
- What does the internal or external customer need? What do they value?
- What are the critical skills required to properly execute the role?
- How are people expected to evolve in their Skills Matrix?
- How are the different departments linked to each other from a communications perspective?
- What data is necessary to carry and maintain as Key Performance Indicators?
- How effective are meetings? (One of the most critical and poorly designed and executed processes in most companies…)
Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, Purchasing, Logistics, Finance, etc. are a huge source of opportunities for organizational improvement. The use of TPM (Lean) concepts applied to administrative and transactional processes offers the opportunity to effectively contribute to achieving business objectives and, why not, to balancing the effort required to achieve the company's goals.
