(The Productivity Pro: Highlands Ranch, CO) -- In lean times managers look for ways to eliminate waste without always knowing what they’re looking for. In her blog post, “Lean Processes and Downtime,” time management and productivity expert Laura Stack offers advice for applying traditional business management theories to modern waste-reduction solutions.

The concept of waste reduction in any workplace has never seemed more important than in today’s weakened economy. Taking notes from lean manufacturing concepts first used by Toyota during the 1970s, Stack applies lean theory, which involves preserving or increasing value with less work—to the 2012 workplace.

The concept of waste reduction is nothing new in U.S. business tradition, Stack says, but finding solutions in the plants and offices of the 19th and 20th centuries was a different challenge than managers and business owners face today. Still, some language of lean manufacturing remains the same: Anything that doesn’t increase value in the eye of the customer must be considered waste, and every effort should be made to eliminate it.

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