Conveyance: The Perfect Place for Waste

By Andrew Quibell

May 12, 2016

In the latest installment of his series of sketches and animations covering areas of waste in manufacturing, Andrew Quibell gives us a look at conveyance. "We all know that moving materials provides zero value to the customer or ourselves," he writes. "It's the perfect place for waste to hide." Read more.

In continuing our exploration of the four key areas of waste in manufacturing, we now come to the second waste – conveyance. We all know that moving materials provides zero value to the customer or ourselves. It’s the perfect place for waste to hide.

An unfortunate measure I’ve seen some organizations take to “improve” conveyance is building up an inventory of materials. Their thought behind this is that if they’re not moving the materials, then there can’t be any conveyance waste. Right?

Not exactly. Inventory chokes your business with waste; so much so that I posted a sketch about it last month. What’s a better remedy for conveyance? Take a look at this month’s sketch and find out – and don’t forget to watch my animation too.

Written by:

Andrew Quibell

About Andrew Quibell

Born and raised in the United Kingdom, Andrew Quibell entered the automotive industry in the mid 1980’s as a trainee quality engineer. He advanced through the ranks into quality management and worked in several established tier-1 companies in the UK before joining the Textron division Kautex in 2002. Quibell entered Textron’s Lean Black Belt program in 2006, eventually becoming a leading lean practitioner in the business, working primarily in high volume manufacturing. His roles at Kautex included VP CI Global and Director, Quality – Global.

Prior to leaving the automotive sector, Quibell sat on Textron’s Quality & Continuous Improvement Council while also working as a regional advisor within Toyota’s tier-1 supplier base organization BAMA. Currently Quibell holds status as a Chartered Member of the UK CQI, a Senior Member of the ASQ, an Incorporated Engineer within ICME, and is registered as a principal auditor in QMS with IRCA.

In January 2016 Quibell left Kautex and moved into the printing industry, joining CIMPRESS – a leader in mass customization of printed products – as their Global Head of Quality Assurance. Presently Andrew lives with his wife and daughter in the Windsor / Greater Detroit area.