When you overproduce you produce too much of something or produce it before it is required. In manufacturing, units are overproduced. In the office, it is more likely to be paper and information, and don’t doubt it for one second, it is rampant in most information-intensive businesses and business functions.
Overproducing creates excess inventory, directly wastes space, and has to be handled and maintained.
Producing more than needed or producing it too soon does not improve efficiency. It consumes your most important resources, such as materials and people, faster than necessary and brings about many of the other kinds of waste.
To eliminate the waste of overproducing:
- Establish a work flow sequence to satisfy your downstream customer.
- Create workplace norms and standards for each of your processes.
- Create a signal device to prevent early processing.
- Resolve other issues of process bottlenecks, poor feedback loops, training, or batch processing and ensure the operation is aligned with customer demand.