Lean tools

ECRS — eliminate, combine, rearrange, simplify

In French: ECRS — éliminer, combiner, réorganiser, simplifier

ECRS is a grid of questions applied to each operation of a process, in an order that is not negotiable: can it be removed, grouped, moved, or made simpler?

The four questions, in order

Eliminate. Is this operation necessary? It is the most profitable question and the one dropped soonest, because it calls into question the very existence of a task someone has been doing for years. A removed operation no longer costs anything, no longer goes wrong and no longer requires training.

Combine. Can it be done at the same time as another, or in the same place? Groupings remove trips, waits and re-handling.

Rearrange. Is the order the right one? Many sequences reflect the history of the workshop rather than a logic. Moving an inspection upstream avoids processing parts that are already bad.

Simplify. Can what remains be done more easily? Tooling, station height, grip, jig. It is the only one of the four that often requires an investment.

Why the order counts as much as the questions

Instinct starts with simplifying: it is concrete, visible and conflict-free. It is also what leads to buying tooling to speed up an operation that could have been removed.

Each step of the grid makes the next one less necessary. Removing dispenses with combining; combining dispenses with rearranging. Going down too fast to simplification amounts to optimising waste — and the result is faster waste.

In practice, the discipline consists of writing the four answers for each operation, including "no" to the first three, rather than jumping straight to the preferred one.

Where to apply it

ECRS is applied to a list of operations already established: a process flow analysis record, an observation of a station, or the steps of an administrative process. Without that list, the grid runs empty — one only questions well what has been described.

It also serves as a facilitation framework. In a workshop, asking the team the four questions, operation by operation, produces more ideas than an open round-table: the framework authorises proposing a removal, which a free discussion discourages.

The common mistakes

Jumping to "simplify" and stopping there. It is the most widespread use of the grid and the one that loses all its point: the gesture is improved instead of the task being questioned.

Eliminating without understanding why the operation exists. An inspection that looks redundant sometimes caught an expensive defect ten years earlier. The question is not "is it useful" but "what is it for, and does that risk still exist".

On the shop floor — Bank back office

Of eleven operations in a file-processing task, three were double entries inherited from an old software package replaced four years earlier. Nobody had challenged them because everyone assumed another department needed them. Processing time fell by a third with no investment.

The other tools illustrated by this trade: banking, insurance and back office.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between ECRS and the five whys?

The five whys look for the cause of a problem; ECRS questions the usefulness of an operation that may pose no visible problem at all. One serves to repair, the other to lighten — and an organisation that only repairs keeps all its useless tasks.

Does ECRS apply to administrative processes?

Particularly well, and often with greater gains than in production: superfluous approvals, double entries and transmissions for information proliferate there without anyone counting them, for lack of a physical station where they would be seen.

Should it be applied to every operation?

Ideally yes, but the order of treatment follows the time consumed: start with the longest or most frequent operations. A Pareto chart of the times points within a few minutes to those that deserve the grid first.

Who should take part?

Those who do the operations, without exception. A grid filled in in a meeting room by management produces theoretical eliminations that run into unknown reasons — and loses the trust of the teams for the following projects.