Question

As you think about your experience at the last airport security screening, you wonder which of the tasks that you saw the officers do at the security check were waste, which were non-value-added work, and which were value-added work. The tasks that you observed included officers doing the following: (a) officers checking IDs, (b) officers telling passengers to take off their shoes, (c) officers moving bins back to the beginning of the X-ray machines, (d) officers looking at the screen of the X-ray machine,

(e) officers putting bags in the X-ray machine for a second time in case they previously contained fluids, and (f) officers waiting for a passenger to arrive.

Identify each of the above activities as waste, value-added work, or non-value-added work.

Answer 1

Before actually getting into the categorization part, let us first understand what these three categories actually mean.

Value-Added Activities

• An activity that transforms or shapes material or information,
• And the customer wants it,
• And it's done right the first time

Non Value-Added — Needed Activities

• Activities causing no value to be created, but which cannot be eliminated based on current state of technology or thinking.
• Required (regulatory, customer mandate, legal).
• Necessary (due to non-robustness of process, currently required; current risk tolerance)

Non Value-Added - Not Needed Activities (Waste)

• Activities that consume resources but create no value in the eyes of the customer.
• Pure waste.
• If you can't get rid of the activity, it becomes a "Non-Value Added - Needed Activity."

Here, the list of activities that fall under the three categories are :

1. Value added activities

• officers checking IDs
• officers looking at the screen of the X-ray machine

2. Non-Value added (but needed)

• officers telling passengers to take off their shoes
• officers moving bins back to the beginning of the X-ray machines

3. Waste (Non-Value added and not needed)

• officers putting bags in the X-ray machine for a second time in case they previously contained fluids
• officers waiting for a passenger to arrive