Look around. What kind of waste do you see? If you’re like most other companies and organizations, there is probably a lot of waste. It lurks in dark corners, just out of place and blatantly hides in plain site where no one dares to remove. It can be a difficult game, but if you know what to look for, then you win most of the time.

The waste can be in the office or it can be on the production floor. It may even be lurking in shipping and receiving. The point is that it can be anywhere, so the earlier you start looking and the earlier you identify it, the earlier you can make gains to eliminate it. You can seldom fully eliminate waste, there is necessary waste that can’t be avoided, but you can make improvements.

Making improvements and striving to improve by waste recycling is what everyone should try to achieve. This is a team effort that often makes people roll their eyes, but it’s true. It will take a group effort to make changes and keep the changes going forward. The worst that can happen is that all efforts made to solve a problem that they will lose if you let things go back the way it was.

Talk about waste; imagine all the effort and time going into fixing a problem and just letting it go back to the way it was. You have wasted man hours and labor and worst of all, you have shown that once something changes, nobody can commit to making those changes stick. So why bother changing anything in the future, it won’t do any good. It discourages people from suggesting ideas and it discourages people from putting those changes in motion.

The bottom line is the changes to become more efficient and less wasteful are both important parts of making a splash in the current economic climate. If you are not striving to get better, then you are going to be left behind. There is always an up and comer that is willing to work harder and longer for what you have already worked to earn. They won’t give up and neither should you. If you can keep improving and making your customers happy, then there is no reason you can’t succeed.