Reduce Unique ICDs by Redesigning the Product or the Process

The objective of this activity is to reduce the number of ICDs by reducing the occurrence of an ICD in producing a unit of Output, or by reducing the number of separate ICDs used in the Output. A unique ICD is one of the key activities in the work center's contribution to the final product (O). It is separate and distinct from any other activity in the work center. For example, the fastening of a part onto a subassembly and a quality control check of the subassembly would be unique ICDs.

B. Redesign the process of producing the ICD or Output

Change the process used to produce the ICD or Output to eliminate activities.

8.
Accept risk of lower profits

No.	Industry SIC	Year	Notes
1	2711	2006	The Baltimore Examiner is standing out as arguably the boldest experiment yet in America's deepening flirtation with free daily newspapers. The Baltimore Examiner aims to be a slimmed down, but full-fledged metro daily, complete with a copydesk, photographers, editors, and reporters. Though there have been alternative weekly papers stacked in coffee shops and bookstores for decades, and free dailies handed out to commuters in recent years, this new subscriber-less paper will offer daily news targeted to the suburbs and the tonier parts of the city.
2	2800	2004	Procter & Gamble's beauty department is a trend based and fashion based business that does not have the time it takes for consumer testing. When baby-boomers where wild for Botox the department launched Olay Regenerist, a line of skin-care-products based on wound-healing technology that P&G had been developing with Sederma Laboratories in France. Regenerist is now number one in the anti-aging category in the U.S. By cutting down on test-marketing, P&G has reduced product launch time from three years to 18 months companywide.
3	4800	2004	Skype has no phone lines or pricey switching equipment of its own, instead using subscribers' PCs and the public Internet to run its network. And rather than spending millions on marketing, the 70-employee company relies entirely on word-of-mouth. The result is a cost structure major phone companies can't touch.
4	5511	2007	Eliminating negotiations over car prices can save money. Car dealers do not have to advertise the sale of the week, they can also cut back on well-paid managers who must approve deals. Salespeople in haggle-free dealerships are paid an hourly wage plus bonuses for volume sales. This translates in higher wages than those of commissioned sales people.
5	6211	2004	Schwab investors open roughly 70 percent of all new accounts in branches. The company encourages affluent customers and those who want advice to go on using the branches by making it easy for these people to schedule appointments there.
6	6311	1991	A major insurance company increased productivity of claims-settlement dept from an average of 15 min/claim to 3 min by eliminating detailed checking on all but very large claims. Instead of verifying 30 items as before, adjusters check just 4.
7	8071	2006	Hospitals are moving to cut dangerous lab errors through improved specimen collection and efficiency. In January 2005, after completing training in the Toyota production techniques, Detroit's Henry Ford Health System started a pilot to speed up specimen-processing time in the surgical pathology lab, moving racks that load slides on a machine nine feet closer so technicians didn't have to walk back and forth so often, and processing smaller batches of slides every 20 minutes instead of waiting for the 60 slides necessary to fill the machines.

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