What Is Indirect Labor?

Indirect departments are also called affairs departments, including general affairs, administration, security, finance, personnel, production management, product quality management, procurement, external contracting, cost management, production technology, design, equipment maintenance, and engineering management.

Indirect sector

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Indirect departments are also called affairs departments, including general affairs, administration, security, finance, personnel, production management, product quality management, procurement, external contracting, cost management, production technology, design, equipment maintenance and engineering management.

Chinese name

Indirect sector

nickname

Office

Content

General affairs, administration, security, finance

Types of

department

The so-called indirect sectors refer to those sectors that are not directly involved in production activities. The efficiency improvement activities of the indirect sectors can refer to the improvement activities of the production sector. The purpose of indirect sector improvement activities is twofold. ^[1]

The more the number of indirect personnel increases, the lower their added value per person becomes. Although there is a saying of "economy of scale". But it does not apply to indirect personnel. If you ignore this phenomenon, it will cause enterprises to add many unnecessary posts, resulting in bloated institutions and superfluous people. Therefore, whether from the perspective of cost reduction or the rational use of operating resources, it is necessary to rationalize the management of indirect departments. ^[2]

The indirect department work site (non-manufacturing department), which works closely with the production site, especially the procurement, warehouse, production management, technology, design and other departments, must also introduce visual management. ^[3]

The TPM activities of the indirect department are mainly to eliminate invalid labor, prevent mistakes, improve work efficiency, and ensure smooth handling of various affairs. ^[4]

1. Characteristics of the indirect sector ^[5]

The indirect department has two tasks: the first task refers to the preliminary tasks of production engineering, including design, production preparation, and material deployment; the second task is to support production tasks, including ensuring employee education, training, and rapid construction Information system.

Compared with the manufacturing site, it has the following characteristics.

(1) The objects of the 7S activities implemented by the indirect department are mainly items related to the office indirectly, including office space, office equipment and facilities, office appliances and documents.

(2) The participants of the 7S activities at the manufacturing site are mainly front-line employees, while the indirect departments are mainly some department employees. Their understanding of 7S is different from that of front-line employees.

(3) Unlike the 7S at the production site, there are relatively obvious evaluation standards, because there is no clear way to evaluate the level of office efficiency.

2. The need for indirect departments to implement 7S activities

The following phenomenon occurs in most companies' indirect departments.

(1) Too many documents and documents

The reasons for excessive documents and documents include encouraging the use of written liaison, written reports and written instructions. Excess documents are not discarded, and documents from other departments are sorted into data.

(2) Necessary documents and documents are not available.

3 The purpose of indirect departments to implement 7S activities

(1) Reduce the number of documents and documents.

(2) Answer the documents from outside the company and other departments as soon as possible.

(3) Expand the use of office space.

(4) Avoid missing shipments.

4 Key Points

The indirect department is also one of the departments that implement 7S activities in the enterprise. It is necessary to abandon the wrong ideas that "the indirect department does not need to do 7s" and "the indirect department does not do well with N7s".