A metric is a measure that is considered to be a key indicator of performance. The best way to get people to contribute to your process improvement efforts is to give them a simple measure to help them understanding the impact of their efforts. Office metrics provide such a means and help drive continuous improvement and elimination of waste.
A lean office strives to improve customer satisfaction by giving customers what they want, when they want it, and at a price they are willing to pay. Office metrics usually fall into the categories of improving speed and accuracy of delivery. They can include:
- Total work lead time
- Total work cycle time
- Number of errors or defects
- Amount of overtime
- Work-load backlog
In order to implement a metric, perform the following activities:
- Perform an assessment of the process to be improved. This should include the use of a value stream map or process map and an evaluation of all the forms of waste.
- During the assessment, determine the total process lead time, cycle times of each task, number of errors committed each day, the amount of overtime generated each week, and any work-load backlog each day.
- Determine which metric is appropriate for the improvement project under consideration.
- Calculate the baseline measures.
- Get management buy-in for the measureable.
- Make your measures visual. Use charts and graphs so that employees see their current performance and their gap to the project goal.
Once the measure has been established and agreed upon, the team can begin to implement kaizen events to make process improvements and monitor their progress using their metric.