“gemba walk” (lean thinking term) to go to the actual place where value is added + “walkabout” (Australian aborigine) a short period of wandering bush life engaged as an occasional interruption of regular work
———————————————————————————————————-
I use OfficeMax to send faxes to the company that makes my frames for my paintings. I use them (rather than having my own fax machine) because we got rid of our landline years ago (nobody calls the house - people call people). I like to use fax for my orders because there are less mistakes with the dimensions for the painting frames.
So … I use OfficeMax. I also buy office supplies from them and they have done some photocopying projects for me (that’s where I get my calendars copied). But I may stop using OfficeMax.
Deb is the person at OfficeMax who usually handles my copy/fax requests. She’s personable, friendly and gets the work done correctly and quickly. We’re on a “first-name” basis. Today she tells me about her recent performance review and how she could have gotten a better review (and a bigger raise) if she were to increase sales at OfficeMax. She’s rated on how much business (and return business) the store gets. What’s she supposed to do? Drive around in her own car on her own time and get people to come to OfficeMax? That’s crazy. That’s what her boss should be doing. Deb works 2 jobs to make ends meet. She may quit working at OfficeMax because of this crazy performance review system and that would be too bad. OfficeMax would need to train a new person to do what Deb does and there’s no guarantee that the new person would do it as well. Training people takes time and money. And the cost of doing that will be added to the cost of photocopying and faxing. So, in the end, I’ll be paying for the stupid system of management that focuses on the numbers.
If Deb quits working at OfficeMax, I’m going to quit using them for my faxing/copying/office supply stuff.
