Visual workplace practices positively impact business processes
Abstract
Purpose
In today's globally competitive environment, customers only want to pay for value‐added activity. They are not willing to pay for inefficiencies, such as those incurred through extra motion, or time spent searching for data, information, or tools. Although these wastes may be transparent to customers, they usually manifest themselves in the company's market share and bottom line. The purpose of this paper is to describe how the visual workplace helps increase efficiency by eliminating non‐value added activities. The visual workplace improves performance by providing information, enabling workers through self‐direction and empowerment to quickly make decisions without requiring oversight. While its practice in the office environment is increasing, it is still not as consistently practiced as it is in the manufacturing environment.
Design/methodology/approach
Utilizing benchmarking, a case study approach and analysis was conducted.
Findings
Visual workplace practices are very common in manufacturing environments. While the practices and usefulness are just as useful in business process environments, there is found to be a reluctance to fully embrace the practices.
Practical implications
The application of visual work practices requires business leaders to create, utilize, and support visual communication tools to manage their business. Its usage can be effectively applied to business processes to eliminate inefficiencies and decrease lost time.
Originality/value
The usefulness of visual workplace practices, once embraced by business leaders, will increase business performance by increasing efficiency and reducing waste.
Keywords
Citation
Kattman, B., Corbin, T.P., Moore, L.E. and Walsh, L. (2012), "Visual workplace practices positively impact business processes", Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 412-430. https://doi.org/10.1108/14635771211243021
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited