“Our quotes, orders and approvals take weeks — but the work only takes hours.”
The hands-on work is small. The waiting, re-keying and chasing approvals is where the weeks go.
What you’re facing
A quote takes two weeks to go out. An order sits in entry for days before it is released. An engineering change needs six signatures. Month-end close takes longer every quarter. Yet if you timed the actual hands-on work, each one takes hours.
The rest is waiting: in inboxes, in queues, for information, for approvals, for someone to re-key data from one system into another. It is invisible because it doesn’t sit on a factory floor.
What this is costing you
- •Lost bids when quotes arrive after a competitor’s
- •Order-to-ship lead time inflated before production even starts
- •Errors and rework from re-keying and handoffs
- •Skilled people spending their day chasing status
- •Cash tied up by slow invoicing and close
The questions you’re probably asking
Does lean really apply in the office?
Yes. Office processes often have a larger gap between hands-on time and elapsed time than the shop floor does. The same principles — flow, pull, standard work, error-proofing — apply.
Won’t new software fix this?
Automating a broken process makes it fail faster. Map and fix the flow first, then automate what remains.
Which processes should we start with?
The one closest to the customer and to cash — usually quote-to-order or order entry to release.
What to do first
- 1Pick one flow — quote-to-order, order-to-release, engineering change, approvals or invoicing.
- 2Follow five real transactions end to end and record hands-on time versus elapsed time.
- 3Count handoffs, approvals and re-keying steps.
- 4Ask the people doing the work where they wait most. They already know.
What best practice says
Transactional Lean measures process efficiency as hands-on (touch) time divided by total elapsed time. In office processes it is common to find the touch time is a small fraction of the total.
Office value stream mapping makes the queues, loops and approvals visible. The fixes are usually structural: fewer handoffs, approval rules by risk level, standard work for request intake, and single data entry.
Method, sized to scope
Transactional Lean: office value stream mapping, hands-on time vs. elapsed time analysis, approval redesign, standard work and error-proofing.
The Exceleor Path, applied to your situation
Every engagement across the Exceleor family follows the same eight stages: Understand, Execute, Sustain. About the Exceleor Path
1. Discovery
In your situation: We map the selected flow with real transactions and measure hands-on vs. elapsed time.
2. Define the engagement path
In your situation: We pick the flows and the method — Kaizen for most office flows, DMAIC where error rates drive rework.
3. Training
In your situation: Your office teams learn office waste, flow and standard work.
4. Implement & engage
In your situation: We redesign the flow: approvals by risk, fewer handoffs, standard intake, single entry.
5. Verify
In your situation: We verify lead time, touch time and error rate against baseline.
6. Validate
In your situation: We validate through a full business cycle, including month-end.
7. Transfer ownership
In your situation: Process owners run a visual queue board and weekly review.
8. Sustain & grow
In your situation: We extend the approach to the next office flow.
What you’ll have at the end
- A mapped current and future state for your key office flows
- Shorter quote, order and approval lead times
- Fewer errors and less re-keying
- Visible queues and clear process owners
Why QMSLean
We start from the business symptom, not a favorite tool. The method — A3, Kaizen or DMAIC — is chosen to fit the size of the problem.
We work on the floor and in the office with your people, and we build the sustain system before we leave, so the gain is still there after we are gone.
And when the root of the problem sits outside Lean, the Exceleor family of companies covers quality systems, supplier quality, EHS and leadership.
Tell us what’s going on.
Request a Situation Review. A Lean practitioner will reply by email with how we would approach your version of this problem.