As insurance reimbursements get lower each year and the cost of doing business gets higher, it’s hard to ignore the possibility that profits might be lurking right inside your lab. By using simple methods of lab organization—such as tool placement, inventory functionality and efficient workspaces—you could realize some serious savings.

How many of you have odds and ends stashed in boxes throughout your fabrication shops? What about dirt and grime jammed into all corners? How about fabrication benches with their entire surfaces covered with dirt except for a 12-inch-by-12-inch open space?

And if dirt isn’t an issue, even the cleanest companies have some clutter. There will always be clutter, but how it’s managed is what’s important.

Wasting time and money

While touring the Toyota car company last year in Toyota City, Japan, I observed a meeting on the production floor. A group of men was having a heated discussion while standing around two large, freestanding boards. On the boards were complex charts and graphs, and in the center of one was a stapled plastic bag.

One man was pointing to the bag and speaking in a loud voice. I asked the interpreter what the meeting was about. He said the men had a problem with a part from a supplier that came packaged in a plastic bag. Apparently, the bags cluttered up their processes and had to be thrown out, adding extra motion.

Who would have thought that a small bag could cause so many problems and, what’s more, that such a large company would take the time to worry about it?

Obviously, Toyota understands the power in managing waste. When you realize that clutter and waste costs company time and money, it makes sense that Toyota was worried about the bag.

Similar waste goes on in the O&P lab every day. Some examples of classic time and money wasters are: searching for parts, tools and materials; walking to get parts, tools and materials; moving items to reach parts, tools and materials; double handling of parts; and the loss of productive space.

The cost of clutter

When you think of cleaning the fabrication lab, I’m sure you imagine all of the clutter and old stuff that needs to be thrown away. But most people are missing the big picture. Getting rid of the garbage saves a company in many ways, but the main benefit is a savings in excess motion.

Have you ever considered the square footage of the company you work for? How much does each square foot cost the company? How much profit is generated in each square foot? How many square feet are not generating profit? Simply put, if you have a lot of square footage dedicated to storing clutter, it’s costing the company, because the space isn’t generating any money. Rather, it is an expensive storage place.

A prime example of a common problem that creates excess motion and loss of productive space is storing old parts.

In my shop, Fabtech Systems, we did a simple informal study on saving old parts. After tracking the problem, we found some interesting conclusions.

First of all, most of the “good” old parts we were saving were not part of our inventory system. One employee would know we had a part, but nobody else would know. This resulted in reordering a part we already had.

Second, if we all knew we had the old parts somewhere, we scheduled a patient who needed one of the parts for a broken brace. We knew that it was in a box somewhere, so we had the patient come in to the office.

Problem solved, right? No. The parts were unorganized in a box, and when we found the one we needed, it was missing a center screw. Now we made our company look bad and provided poor service to our patient.

So the good, old part was put back into the box for the next time—until finally, the box of parts began taking up much-needed space. This was prime space that could have been used for fabrication. So in the end, it was costing us money.

Let’s examine the results. Saving old parts resulted in extra motion, the loss of productive space, the loss of money spent on a new part and the waste of the technician’s and patient’s time. Most of the parts we were saving were inexpensive, but were costing the company many times their value in associated waste.

Look around the lab

Take some time to look around the fabrication lab where you work. Is there waste? Is there space that can be used for more profitable purposes?

According to Washington Employers Inc., a human resource management firm in Seattle, it is predicted that companies will achieve roughly 80 percentreturn on their efforts in waste reduction.

For those of you who want a detailed system for getting rid of waste, I recommend purchasing the “5-S system”—sort, straighten, scrub, systemize and standardize.

I hope you can begin to see how getting rid of clutter and excess waste will dramatically help your company improve its profit and cost savings, generate more production with less effort, foster employee teamwork and provide better patient care.

Greg Mattson, RTPO, is the owner of Fabtech Systems, LLC in Mukilteo, Wash. He is a member of OPTA. For more information about OPTA, call (866) 736-2637 or visit www.oandp.com/opta.