6 Business Practices That Can Help You Manage Your Life Better
Miscellaneous / / December 21, 2021
1. Kaizen
Translated from Japanese, it means "continuous improvement". The Kaizen philosophy has become the foundation of Lean Manufacturing aimed at reducing all types of waste.
In order to implement kaizen at work, it is important to involve all employees, and at home, every family member. You can start like this: evaluate where the most resources (money, time) are going, and think about what items of expenditure can be called losses. For example, is it worth spending money every day on a bag in the supermarket if you can get a string bag. Or do you really need coffee to go from the coffee shop every morning.
According to kaizen, new ways of saving must be constantly sought and applied. But the good news is that it doesn't require a lot of investment. For example, a fabric shopper will cost 150 rubles and will pay off in a month of shopping. A package of good coffee and a nice thermo cup will take one and a half thousand, but about the same cost 15–20 glasses of the finished drink.
Another example is kaizen in food preparation. To avoid wasting food, you can either go to the store to shop for a specific recipe, or use the leftovers to prepare new dishes. Let's say, if you wanted meringue, you need proteins and powdered sugar. The yolks will remain, but don't go to the trash can: you can add them to the dough or make an eggnog.
Kaizen principles are not only used in Japan. They formed the basis of the national project “Labor productivity». Its goal is to ensure a stable growth of the efficiency of Russian companies by 5% annually. With the support of the project, entrepreneurs can get advice from experts from the Federal Center of Competence and find out how to improve their production performance. But the project provides not only consulting support. Here you can get tax preferences and financial support, as well as take a retraining program for managers.
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2. Bottleneck analysis
Bottleneck analysis helps identify steps that reduce performance. And then adjust them - after all, if you increase the throughput of such a "bottleneck", any process will go faster.
Real life example: Imagine that you have cut all the products into different dishes for the New Year's table. But you won't be able to cook them quickly, because your stove has only two burners. This means that it makes sense to prepare products sequentially: while one is being cut, the other is being cooked. As a result, you will have more free time - you can relax or do gift wrapping.
How do you find such bottlenecks? Highlight the individual stages in the big picture and imagine that at each of them you need to do 10 times more. Where the increase in volume will not work, most likely, there will be a bottleneck.
This is not only true for the products or ingredients for the salad. For example, if you have only one person in your company who knows how to beautifully sign postcards, then you will not be able to send them quickly because he needs at least 5 minutes for each message. But if you find another person with good handwriting, the problem will be solved - it will go twice as fast.
3. Just in time
Just-in-time also tackles surplus. The approach says that the amount of work at the current stage is determined by what is required at the next stage. No more, no less! Any raw materials or products must arrive on time and in the right quantity.
This is also one of the pillars of lean manufacturing. With it, a business does not have to rent large (and in fact unnecessary!) Warehouses, organize logistics and incur additional costs.
In life, just-in-time is also easy to apply. For example, if you want to make repairs in a small apartment, then it is not at all necessary to buy all building materials at once - there may be nowhere to store them. It is better to clearly plan all stages of work. Then you will know when to buy wallpaper and glue and on what date to order laminate delivery. And it will become easier with finances: you do not have to pay a large amount at a time, the costs can be distributed over several payments.
4. TPM
Total Productive Maintenance, or Total Equipment Maintenance, is a technique developed for manufacturing. Its essence is to teach how to perform basic commissioning operations not only for the most experienced specialists, but also for all ordinary employees. In addition, she offers to service the equipment constantly in order to notice malfunctions in time, quickly and inexpensively eliminate them, and prevent downtime.
Outside of work, this technique is also useful. For example, everyday life will be easier if all family members know how to use a washing machine and a vacuum cleaner, as well as wash and clean them in time, and understand if something is going wrong. As a result, home appliances will be in good working order and last longer. Another analogy is to regularly run an antivirus scan of your computer and make backups so that you do not suddenly lose important data.
5. SMART
Clever goal setting is called an acronym in which the basic principles are encrypted. The goal should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
The method was invented for marketing, but today it is used almost everywhere. Let's say you want to start saving money. To set a SMART goal, break it down point by point. Let's say your goal is to save up for a car. Then by SMART it may look like this:
- specific - I want to save up for a new car of a certain model;
- measurable - for this I need 300 thousand rubles;
- achievable - I will save 15% from each salary;
- significant - I need a new car to make it easier and safer to travel around the country;
- determined in time - I will accumulate in two years.
6. PDCA
PDCA, or the Shewhart-Deming Cycle, is a cyclically repeating process of implementing change. Each new cycle improves the quality of a product or process. The method was developed by American scientists Walter Shewhart and William Deming. They identified four phases:
- plan (plan) - set goals, determine the stages and tools that are needed to achieve them;
- do (do) - do the planned work;
- check - check the result to see if it meets expectations;
- act - adjust processes to improve quality.
How to apply this approach in life? Let's say you need to bake a pie.
At the planning stage you search for a recipe, prepare the ingredients, take out a mixer and an oven dish.
At the stage of action - mix the products in a given sequence, pour the dough into the mold, lay out the fruits and berries, send them to the oven and wait until the cake is ready.
At the verification stage - check if it turned out tasty.
At the stage of influence - thinking about how to make the cake even better: for example, lower the temperature in the oven so that the dough is baked more evenly, or sprinkle it with powdered sugar and chocolate chips.
Most productivity practices are universal: they can be used across different lines of business - and even in everyday life. National project "Labor productivity»Aims to help introduce new ways of working in Russian business and make it more competitive.
The use of innovative techniques helps businesses to cut costs and lower production costs. And the application of new approaches in management will help to increase labor productivity without serious investments.
Increase labor productivity