Waste A%

Possible reasons for a resource not being available for productive use include:

The cost of a resource being unavailable can be disproportionately high viz:
- A key team member goes absent, delaying any work by the rest of the team until he returns e.g. the surgeon heading an operating team
- Regular absenteeism by team members, a sign of low morale, puts more pressure on team-mates or more staff/ overtime having to be employed if customer demand is to be met
- A key component is out of stock, stopping all work further down the line
- A key piece of equipment or a computer system breaks down, stopping all services until it’s repaired
- A hospital operating theatre closes every night, over weekends and on bank holidays, causing many patients to suffer for longer

There’s a limit to availability percentages, however – 100% is impossible to achieve:
- People need holidays and inevitably some will fall ill – they also need ‘rest-breaks’ throughout their working day, especially to refresh their grey cells
- Suppliers will not always be able to deliver exactly on time
- Customer demand will fluctuate and sometimes cause even the best stock control systems to suffer stockouts
- Machines will break down, and need regular maintenance stops
- Hospital beds cannot be made available 100% of the time – downtime is needed for vital cleaning and changing of sheets, otherwise the risk of cross-infections is greatly increased

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