I'm doing some more Kaizen in the home life again and eliminating more Batch and Queue steps in the Kitchen.
It's been about 4 months since we did "Lean for the Home: Loading the Dishwasher" and things are much cleaner around the right side of the sink where we used to pile the dirty dishes. It also uncovered a new issue in our kitchen. That we stack the hand washed dishes on the left side of the sink to air dry.
That's right, another batch and queue process where we are creating another pile of inventory. We either:
1. Put them away after 8 to 18 hours
2. Just re-use them before they even make it into the cabinets
3. We spill something on them and have to re-wash, starting the process all over again.
Solution: We are removing another step in our process. After hand washing we dry them by hand and put them immediately away thereby simplifying the process, decreasing the WIP (Work in Progress). "Presto Changeo'" we have one piece flow!
Reflection: The kitchen has become much cleaner, but why didn't we do this sooner? It seems like a "no-brainer".
Easy answer, until we cleared away the dirty dishes on the right side we didn't notice the clean dishes piling up on the left. It's amazing how just by fixing one thing, a light will shine on the next problem to tackle.
