Companies' Four Key Inefficiencies that Add Cost but No Value

Inventory Management
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Inventory Management
Companies are in the business of creating value for consumers, and any additional cost in its operations should result in an added value. However, companies also experience situations where they incur additional costs but add no value in some cases. This paper aims to explore four key inefficiencies that add cost but no value using real-life companies as examples. The four key inefficiencies to be explored are logistics, information, politics, and ethics.
Logistics
This inefficiency involves the cost of time and motion. Companies are often working towards reducing the cost of time and motion. However, time and motion inefficiencies are still a challenge to many organizations. For example, SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital has experienced time and motion inefficiencies that have been costly. Nurses at the hospitals' nurse stations have wasted time walking from the nurse station to the patient room or trying to get in touch with their peers for consultation concerning patient issues (Medical Construction and Design (MCD), 2017). These nurses' time moving from the nurse station to the patient rooms is considerable. Also, they spend much time trying to locate their peers, and this is time that should be used to provide care or complete reports (MCD, 2017). The inefficiency of the hospital's design has cost it millions of hours that would have otherwise been utilized to create value for patients. Yet, the nursing stations are an important part of the hospital's operations. Nurses need a place where they can work during their shifts when they are not attending o patients. However, the back and forth movement is an ineffective way of spending time, contributing to inefficiencies. It is a non-value-adding task that patients end up not paying for.
Information
Information and information management plays a significant role in improving operational efficiency. An organization that knows the cost of information inefficiency is Yale-New Haven Hospital. According to (Strata Decision Technology, 2019), Yale-New Haven Hospital had access to much clinical information as well as the cost of care information. However, this information was on different platforms, and although the platforms they were using to manage the cost, and clinical data were expensive, they were not adding value in terms of improving the cost and quality of care as well as resources utilization. The inefficiency stemmed from the fact that their cost accounting system and the clinical data processing system could not communicate, although they had access to sufficient information that could improve the cost and quality of care. However, the organization eventually addressed this inefficiency by creating a platform that gave them access to cost of care as well clinical data. Combined, these sets of information have improved how clinical and financial decision-makers collaborate to provide cost-effective and quality care.
Politics
Politics can contribute to inefficiencies. As Cai et al. (2018) indicate, internal organizational politics revolve more around gender, race, and ideology, among other things, and less around quality. This is problematic and can lead to inefficiency as people focus more on politics and less on adding value. Google has experienced internal politics that have contributed to its inefficiencies by creating a negative work environment and lowering employee morale. Google has been known to create a work environment that allows employees to question the company's activities and decisions. However, this has created internal politics and debates that negatively affect the work environment in recent years. There have been divisive internal politics at Google that have created animosity and backlash internally and externally. For instance, there have been politics about gender roles and abilities where an employee's memo indicating t...