Value added

Post date: Jun 14, 2015 5:42:13 PM

I've long been an advocate of "value added". I heard this term a long time ago in some seminar or symposium for a work situation I am sure. This term value added may refer to adding processes to a business or your family it should always; emphasis on exclusively every damn time; add value. If it does not add value then it adds nothing.

This hot reminder comes after what I've seen at where I currently work since so much of the time no one ever asks that questions or thinks of whether what they are doing and making others do really adds any value.

Reminds me of an article I read on Camp Butler (outside of Springfield Illinois very near Riverton) in the days of the Civil War when the "hospital" (whether a tent surgery can be constituted a hospital is highly debatable and is another story) surgeon requested supplies from the war department. Men were dying (3 to 4 deaths per day and as high as 15 a day) and the supplies were greatly needed. The reply back from the bureaucracy was that the request must be in duplicate. The supply department had to have their quota of forms filled in order to meet the need rather than making a duplicate copy for the requisitioner or sending the supplies with a note requesting another request to fulfill the obligation of having a duplicate was not considered. How many men died in order to fulfill the process requirements? No one knows but obviously value added was not a consideration. Something everyone would be mindful to think about is does this request add value.