The Hidden Costs Slowing Down Your Operations (And How to Eliminate Them)

The Hidden Costs Slowing Down Your Operations (And How to Eliminate Them)

Operations rarely fail because of big, dramatic breakdowns.
They fail because of hundreds of small moments of friction, the workarounds, manual checks, unclear handoffs and legacy habits that quietly consume capacity and erode margin.

Leaders often don’t see these issues until the cost becomes too big to ignore: slow throughput, rising cost-to-serve, missed SLA promises, or a team that’s permanently “firefighting”.

This is the hidden operational tax most organisations are paying without realising it.

And it’s avoidable.

When Systems Don’t Deliver the Promised Improvement

A recent ERP implementation I supported illustrated this perfectly.

Everything was set up correctly:

→ The process design was strong
→ The system was configured well
→ Training was thorough
→ Stakeholders were aligned

Yet throughput didn’t move.

At first glance, the business assumed the system was the problem.

But the real issue sat beneath the surface: both legacy & new workarounds that people continued using because they felt “safer” or “quicker in the moment”.

Examples included:

→ Rebuilding data in Excel rather than trusting system outputs
→ Manual checks sitting between every operational step
→ Email-based approvals despite automated workflow being live
→ Handoffs built on personal preference rather than operational logic

Individually, these steps looked insignificant.
Collectively, they absorbed hours of productive capacity every single day.

Why Workarounds Survive (Even After Major Change)

The logic behind a workaround is always the same: keep the operation moving right now.

Teams maintain them because:

1. They don’t fully trust the new process yet
2. They fear being blamed if something goes wrong
3. They’ve been conditioned to avoid risk, even if it slows everything down
4. They want control when system behaviour feels unpredictable

This is normal human behaviour, but it’s operationally expensive.

In the ERP project above, workarounds erased much of the value of a six-figure technology investment.
The system wasn’t the constraint.
The behaviours were.

The True Cost of Hidden Friction

Hidden friction doesn’t show up neatly on a dashboard.

It shows up everywhere else:

→ 15–25% slower processing times from duplicated checks
→ Significant margin erosion from “temporary” steps that quietly become permanent
→ Hours of rework each week caused by inconsistent data handling
→ Teams constantly firefighting instead of improving the operation
→ Customer experience declines masked as “operational delays”

In one operation, simply removing three manual workarounds improved throughput by 18% and reduced overtime costs by five figures.

None of this required new technology.
It required removing friction.

The Friction Diagnostic: A Simple Way to Expose Issues Quickly

You don’t need a complex audit to find where performance is leaking.
A simple diagnostic, used consistently, is enough to surface the truth fast.

1️⃣ Flow — Where does work stop or wait?

Delays, batching, unclear handoffs, missing inputs.
These are often the biggest silent killers of productivity.

2️⃣ Decision — Where are people forced to ask, clarify or escalate?

If a process requires interpretation, the process is already broken.

3️⃣ Data — Where is information duplicated, inconsistent or incomplete?

Most rework originates from poor data flow, not poor people.

When I apply this diagnostic inside operations, the patterns reveal themselves quickly.
The challenge is not finding friction; it’s addressing the organisational habits that allow it to survive.

What Leaders Should Do Next

A strong operational leader does not ask:
“Who caused this?”

They ask:
“What in our system allowed this to happen?”

Here’s where I typically start:

✔ Stop accepting workarounds as ‘normal’

They are not harmless.
They are operational debt; and debt demands interest.

✔ Rebuild flow before you rebuild systems

Operations break at the seams, not at the software.

✔ Establish a non-negotiable standard for data handling

Ambiguity is the enemy of efficiency.

✔ Remove friction before layering on more technology

Otherwise new tools inherit old problems.

These steps sound simple.
They are not.
They require objectivity, discipline, and the ability to challenge deeply held assumptions within a team.

Why Organisations Struggle to Fix Friction Alone

Internal teams are often simply too close to the problem.
The workarounds have become invisible.
People know the symptoms but can’t see their root causes clearly.

Bringing in external operational expertise isn’t about shiny frameworks; it’s about cutting through the noise, focusing on the few constraints that matter, and redesigning flow so the operation can scale without relying on heroics.

Every business claims to want efficiency.
Very few are willing to confront the underlying friction preventing it.

If your operation feels slower, heavier or more chaotic than it should, the root cause is friction — not your people, and not the technology.

It’s the space in between.

Removing that friction is where the real performance gains sit.

If you want an objective assessment of where your operation is leaking time, margin and capacity, let’s have a conversation.
A short discussion is often enough to highlight the exact constraints holding your business back.