The Cost of Small Problems
What are the costs of small problems? Most manufacturers can quickly identify their biggest challenge. Whilst major incidents attract attention, these small killers quietly drain performance.
What makes them dangerous is that they often become accepted as part of the process. Nobody raises an issue because the impact appears to be minor. Nobody starts a project because the cost isn’t visible. Overtime, these small problems across multiple people, shifts and departments turn into substantial costs.
Consider some common examples we’ve faced on shop floors:
An operator spends an extra few seconds searching for a tool before carrying out a task.
It doesn’t sound like much, but those seconds are repeated dozens of times per shift, every day, by multiple operators. Over the course of a year, this can easily translate into hundreds of hours of lost productivity. Six Sigma can help improve workplace organisation and implement point-of-use storage, meaning the root cause is addressed rather than accepted. Tools are stored exactly where they’re needed and always available, reducing search time and returning lost seconds to productive work. Studies of workplace organisation initiatives have reported significant reductions in time spent searching for tools and materials.
A recurring quality issue creates a small amount of rework each week.
The impact may go unnoticed because production can continue and the problem appears manageable. However, rework consumes additional labour, machine time and materials whilst reducing available capacity. The true cost is often much higher than the visible effort required to correct the defect. Six Sigma helps organisations identify and eliminate the root causes of variation, preventing defects from occurring rather than repeatedly fixing them after the event. Research has consistently shown that the hidden costs of rework can extend far beyond the immediate corrective action.
A process requires the same information to be entered twice.
Entering data into multiple systems or spreadsheets may only take an extra minute or two, but those minutes accumulate quickly and create a significant administrative burden. It also increases the risk of human error and inconsistencies between systems. Six Sigma helps organisations streamline processes, remove unnecessary steps, and create a more efficient flow of information, freeing employees to focus on value-adding activities.
Different operators perform the same task in different ways.
The process may still achieve the desired outcome, but variation introduces inconsistency in quality, cycle time and performance. Over time, these small differences can lead to defects, delays and unpredictable results. Six Sigma focuses on reducing variation through standardisation, measurement and data-driven decision-making, helping create more consistent and reliable processes.
Waiting for approvals before work can continue.
Whether it’s waiting for a sign-off, quality approval or production decision, these delays are often accepted simply because they’re part of the process. However, repeated waiting creates bottlenecks that reduces responsiveness. Six Sigma helps identify these constraints, understand why they occur, and streamline decision-making so work can move through the process more efficiently.
None of these issues would normally trigger an emergency meeting. Most organisations will continue to operate and accept or refuse to acknowledge them. This is why they’re so difficult to spot.
Those small costs add accumulate in the background through lost productivity, unnecessary motion, process variation, delays, rework and wasted capacity.
The biggest gains don’t always come from solving the biggest problems. If you want to understand the cost of your small problems, get started with Six Sigma, view our upcoming programmes here.
