UP WITH WASTE AND INEFFICIENCY!
Marc Friedlander

There is a process.  It is inefficient and error prone but it functions.  Suppose it is 70% efficient or effective.  The process continues, work is done, and there is some waste and expense due to the 70% efficiency rate.  The people that administer the process are aware that there is significant waste and that things do not work perfectly, but there is a job to do and the process continues.

        Now, a manager (typically a person NOT directly involved in the process) gets a bug up his ass and decides to improve the efficiency rate from 70%.  He looks at the waste and asks the ”team” to find ways of reducing this and suggests some ways himself.  The team goes to work and after some head scratching and re-defining of roles and procedures, some improvements are found.  Perhaps – with some expense, time, and effort - the efficiency rate can be increased to 75% (except with some downsides not visible or considered).  But even with the drawbacks, the plan might represent an improvement over the previous process.  The team presents the plan to the manager.

        The manager is not satisfied.  The manager is going for 99% efficiency (even HE admits you’ll never get to 100%).  Or who knows, maybe he'll even want to go for that good old, reliable, 110%. But no matter what, he will not accept the new process plan.  He is driving for something more.  But the team has already exhausted the obvious avenues for improvement.  They have picked the “low hanging fruit”, and nothing else really suggests itself.  But the manager wants something better, and says they have to stop the waste immediately.  Work stops while the team searches for better performance.  They propose various things to the manager (out of pure desperation) but the manager is STILL NOT SATISFIED.  Work comes to a halt.  There is now 0% efficiency.

For illustration, consider the following examples (the numbers may not be scientifically exact, but they are close enough to make my point):

            An internal combustion engine runs at about 20% efficiency, with 80% of the fuel consumed NOT involved in propelling the car.

            An incandescent light bulb runs at about 10% efficiency – with 90% of the energy consumed released as heat rather than light.

            These technologies have provided transportation and light for billions, even at their hideously low efficiency rates.  Physicists and engineers have devoted untold man-hours into improving these technologies to make them more efficient – but they have already been engineered to death and are resistant to any further gains.  Imagine what would happen if some manager decides that these efficiencies are unacceptable and must be improved to 99%, and until it is done, no more internal combustion engines or incandescent light bulbs can be made or used.

            Waste and inefficiency are a part of EVERY SUCCESSFUL PROCESS.

UP WITH WASTE AND INEFFICIENCY!