Case: Kaizen Burst or Bust Assume that you are a new hire at the company that is buying products from India. This is
a retail apparel company, and you are tasked with getting low costs as well as responsiveness to
the market to meet customer demand. You are part of a Kaizen burst event that is responsible for
looking at the current ordering process. Your task: Identify, suggest, and implement some
improvements. You also need to suggest an idea for the next Kaizen burst event based on what
you do in this event. Team members participating in the Kaizen burst include: Contract manager
(you), Marketing representative, Distribution center associate, Distribution center manager, &
Retail Store associate.
The value-stream map your team has developed is shown below. Your
definition/description of the process follows the map. As your team built the map, you talked about
how Zara is doing all sorts of innovative things to take time out of its supply chain and be more
responsive. You wonder what it would take be more like Zara.

Steps in Order Process
Step 1 –
The customer (that’s us!) review of inventory to determine the actual order placement takes
5 days, with a bit of time spent here and there. This may include some texts/messages sent to the
stores to provide qualitative information on whether they want more of the product, and waiting
for responses. It also includes review of quantitative data related to total sales of that item. Trend, description and seasonal patterns for that item. But there is 1 minute of value-added activity when
the order is actually transmitted.
Step 2 –
On average, from the time that the supplier gets the order until they actually get around to
visually checking the stock takes the supplier 7.5 days, of which time they spend 3 minutes
checking the stock.
Step 3 –
Over the next 1.8 days, the stock information is input into the system and automatically
compared to the customer order, and order is created by the system, with an e-mail sent to the DC
for manual approval. Once that happens, the order is electronically placed with the supplier’s
supplier. The total time in value-added activity is 45 seconds.
Step 4 –
The supplier’s supplier gets the order and fills it and ships the same day if received before
noon. The total time for the order to be picked and shipped until it arrives at the supplier is 2.6
days, including value-added of 10 minutes to process and fill the order, and 2 days of shipping
time. If the supplier does not have the materials in stock, the order is cancelled because it takes too
long to restock the fabrics.
Step 5 –
Once back at the supplier, the order is received, paper work matched, quality checked,
production scheduled and the materials are used in manufacturing. This takes a total of 23 days, of
which 5 hours are value added activity.
Step 6 –
The completed product is loaded on a truck and shipped to a terminal near the port in
Chennai. This takes 1 day, a total of 3 hours value-added.
Step 7 –
The product is loaded into a container which is put on a truck to go to the port and be loaded
on a ship. This takes 2 days, a total of which 2 hours is value- added.
Step 8 –
The ship sets sail around the Cape of Good Hope (Africa), to Miami, FL USA. Where the cargo is
unloaded. This takes 38 days, a total of which 35 days are value added (meaning the boat is
moving). Step 9 –
The container is loaded on a truck to go to a terminal. This takes 1.5 days, a total of which 2 hours
is value-added.
Step 10 –
The container is unloaded at the depot, and put on a truck to go to the customer (our) DC.
This takes 3 days, a total of which 16 hours is value added activity. This includes an average of 2
hours waiting at our DC for the truck to be unloaded.
Total time: 85.4 days (2049.6 hours)
Total value-added time: 38 days, 4 hours, 14 minutes and 45 seconds (or around 916 hours)

Questions:
1. Use the concepts from the eight wastes to identify the areas with the greatest amount of
waste. Identify the type or types of waste in each case.
2. Prioritize the areas that you should focus on in terms of the amount of effort that you would
need to undertake for the amount of potential time savings.
3. Based on what you know, divide up the areas of waste to things that are clearly a part of
your own processes versus the supplier’s process. Which should you tackle first and why?
How much waste do you think you will be able to cut out with your suggestions in each of
the areas that you will tackle?
4. Draw a new “should-be/could be value stream map that incorporates your suggestions.