Examples of Waste Waste – Lean’s Target DPZIETLOW & ASSOCIATES

Waste Non-value-added activities are easy to spot once you know what you’re looking for Lean practitioners generally refer to these types of activities as “waste” Taiichi Ohno, father of the Toyota Production System, classified seven types of manufacturing waste WE DPZIETLOW & ASSOCIATES

Inventory - A Key Waste Inventory – hides insidious wastes Traditional wisdom - inventory good: We can respond more quickly to our customer It keeps our machines & workers busy during business lulls Financially, inventory is an asset But inventory actually hides production problems & ties up our cash – Poor quality, long setup times, lack of housekeeping, machine breakdowns, absenteeism, etc. DPZIETLOW & ASSOCIATES

Defect - Waste Defects - an obvious waste Whenever we put time & effort into making something that doesn’t meet customer requirements, we’ve created waste Even when a product itself meets customer requirements, we can create defect waste by failing to document an inspection, leaving a manual out of a shipment. DPZIETLOW & ASSOCIATES

Waiting - Waste Cheese delivered 3:30 p.m. daily DPZIETLOW & ASSOCIATES

Waste – Over Production Overproduction occurs whenever we build more than is currently demanded by customers We can be tempted to overproduce in order to keep our machine efficiencies up & beat labor standards While overproducing will improve those metrics, the negative financial impact of overproduction is of greater concern DPZIETLOW & ASSOCIATES

Processing - Waste There are two primary causes of processing waste – Working to a finer tolerance than that demanded by the customer – Working too long on each piece because our process lacks capability Each of these wastes indicates a problem with the process itself DPZIETLOW & ASSOCIATES

Motion - Waste Motion waste occurs whenever workers have to move excessively to do their jobs This can include walking between several locations & twisting & turning within a single work location Lack of motion can also be a waste – ”watching the wash” DPZIETLOW & ASSOCIATES

Waste - Transportation Moving parts, equipment, setup tooling & machines around within a production process is wasteful Manufacturing floors are susceptible to this type of waste because people like to organize by department instead of by product DPZIETLOW & ASSOCIATES Shipping & Receiving Testing Final Inspection Production

Waste - Office Inventory Full inboxes, lengthy To-Do lists, long work queues Defects Memos containing spelling & grammar errors Waiting Delaying a meeting until a coworker returns from vacation Overproduction Excessive cc-ing Processing Routing documents for approval Motion Walking to the copier/printer/fax machines Transportation Interoffice mail DPZIETLOW & ASSOCIATES