Visual workplace practices positively impact business processes

Abstract

PurposeIn 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/approachUtilizing benchmarking, a case study approach and analysis was conducted.FindingsVisual 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 implicationsThe 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/valueThe usefulness of visual workplace practices, once embraced by business leaders, will increase business performance by increasing efficiency and reducing waste.