Lean management in indirect business areas: modeling, analysis, and evaluation of waste

Because of the rising complexity of indirect business areas, processes become less transparent and it is therefore more difficult to distinguish between value-adding activities and waste. As an essential requirement for purposeful optimization, all existing types of waste in a process must be identified and quantified in terms of their negative impacts on the process productivity and the customer’s wishes. Hence, this article proposes an approach that increases the transparency and ensures objectivity by concentrating on the value stream, revealing weaknesses, detecting their causes, and evaluating the impact on the process according to the philosophy of Lean Management. The methodology is separated into three main steps: process modeling, analysis, and the evaluation of waste in indirect business areas. This results in an effect-orientated classification of potential waste in the process and yields a priority list of fields of action. The basis for the implementation of process optimization is thus developed.