introduced (as Ohno would have predicted) in the sorting, batching and queuing in central claims, compounded by the pressure to log them into the system by lunchtime. Evidently, pursuing ‘dirty’ claims (which the branch adjusters were obliged to do to meet their targets) was not very productive: they were just building inventory and rework. The final turn of the screw was that to catch up with the backlog, the adjusters would come into the office on Saturdays to write their file notes and reports, which arrived on the administrators’ desks on Monday morning, for typing up within 24 hours (another target). Monday morning was when administrators were most occupied with answering calls from customers asking what had happened to their claims (we call this ‘failure demand’—demand caused by a failure to do something or do something right for the customer; it is the consequence of poor service design).