Three Copies. Three Decades. Three Million Dollars

Have you ever lost your company $3 million?

One of my coworkers did.

It started when a coordinator walked into my office and asked, "Joel, do you know why I have to print every job package in triplicate?" Not one. Not TWO. THREE. If one copy was missing, the job was delayed or canceled.

I didn't know.

Her boss didn't know.

His boss didn't know.

So I kept asking. For the next week, my question kept climbing until Compliance finally found the answer.

There was no standard. No policy. No requirement.

Years earlier, someone simply liked having everything in triplicate. That person left. The process stayed.

Curious, I grabbed a calculator. Three copies per packet, fifteen packets per day, forty coordinators over fifteen years.

The result?

More than 230 million unnecessary pages. Over $3 million in paper alone.

This is what Lean has taught me.

Small process problems don't stay small. They multiply by people, volume, and time.

But here's the lesson.

The villain wasn't the paper, it was the process. More importantly, the hero wasn't me,

it was building a culture where one employee finally felt safe enough to ask, "Why?"

That's leadership.

Not fixing everything yourself but building a culture where people feel safe asking questions.

Discussion: What's the "printing in triplicate" that's quietly costing your company $3 million?

Joel Nielsen is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt who helps organizations improve people and processes. Learn more at Lean-Corp.com.