When designing the Toyota Production System (TPS), Taiichi Ohno defined several kinds of "muda" or "waste" that manufacturing workers were experiencing. Issues like overproduction, excess inventory, and wasted time were among the 8 types of waste that he sought to eliminate in the new process he would help create.
Waste of movement is probably the easiest of these to observe in everyday work. Ohno would watch workers walking around their work area and throughout the building to find tools, gather parts, and carry out other tasks necessary to their roles in building a car. Through the implementation of TPS, factories around the world have been updated to put as many tools and parts as possible within the reach of workers in the hopes of reducing their wasted steps and the accompanying waste of time.
Law firms are not manufacturing plants, but we can learn a lot from TPS. This is especially true in practice areas that involve clearly definable processes and deliverables like documents.
In designing EstateAssist, the elimination of muda was a guiding principle for our team. As Ohno sought to reduce steps, we continually refined (and continue to refine) our system to reduce the number of times a user "touches" the data. Where some legal software has the user entering things like names and addresses numerous times, we have sought to require entering information only once, if at all possible. Where some have required the user to decide which forms should include certain information, EstateAssist has automated much of the document production through recognition of dates and a few checkboxes.
Repetition may aid learning, but it kills productivity. One of the greatest benefits of legal technology is the reduction of rote data entry. Legal professionals should have minimal data entry work and, instead, be left with more time for thinking, planning, and communicating with clients. EstateAssist is doing exactly that, and will continue to develop with this guiding principle at the heart of all we do.
Have an idea for where we can reduce user waste? We'd love to hear it. Email us at suggestfeatures@estateassist.app.
Comments