1. Lean
Manufacturing
7+1 wastes

2. Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
1. TRANSPORTATION
Transport is the movement of materials from one location to another, this is a waste as it adds zero value to the product. Why would your customer or you for that matter, want to pay for an operation that adds no value? Transport adds no value to the product, you as a business are paying people to move material from one location to another, a process that only costs you money and makes nothing for you. This waste can be a very high cost to your business, you need people to operate it and equipment such as trucks or fork trucks to undertake this expensive movement of materials.

3. 1. TRANSPORTATION- How to eliminate or reduce
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
1. TRANSPORTATION- How to eliminate or reduce
Layout should be changed as per the principles of lean manufacturing, create value streams and make that value flow at the pull of the customer. This requires you to have production lines or cells that contain all of the value adding processes rather than a functional layout. It also means reducing the spaces between those operations and avoiding the use of “super machines” by using small dedicated (often cheaper) machines instead. Improving factory layout through the use of value stream mapping and process mapping can give huge savings in time and money, often with little cost involved relative to the savings to be made.

4. Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
2. INVENTORY
Inventory costs you money, every piece of product tied up in raw material, work in progress or finished goods has a cost and until it is actually sold that cost is yours. In addition to the pure cost of your inventory it adds many other costs; inventory feeds many other wastes. Inventory has to be stored, it needs space, it needs packaging and it has to be transported around. It has the chance of being damaged during transport and becoming obsolete. The waste of inventory hides many of the other wastes in your systems.

5. 2. INVENTORY- How to reduce or eliminate
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
2. INVENTORY- How to reduce or eliminate
Look at factory and cell layout and balance your production processes to ensure that work in progress does not build up between processes, it is not important to run every machine as fast as it can be run, at the end of the day we only need to make things as quickly as the customer wants them, no faster; takt time (the time interval between customer call off) and Kanban can be used to help ensure that we balance our processes and prevent the build up of inventory. Inventory hides all other problems, even if you implement flow with Kanban systems you should look to continue to keep dropping your inventory (comfort levels) to expose more and more of the rocks enabling you to make your processes more and more reliable.

6. Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
3. MOTION
Unnecessary motions are those movements of man or machine which are not as small or as easy to achieve as possible, by this I mean bending down to retrieve heavy objects at floor level when they could be fed at waist level to reduce stress and time to retrieve. Excessive travel between work stations, excessive machine movements from start point to work start point are all examples of the waste of motion. All of these wasteful motions cost you time (money) and cause stress on your employees and machines, after all even robots wear out.

7. Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
3. MOTION- how to eliminate or reduce
Whilst there will always be some form of motion within your process it should be minimized as much as possible, both to reduce overburden (Muri) and to improve your efficiencies; this is a benefit to you and your employees as you are making their work easier. The simplest and most powerful lean manufacturing tool at your disposal to eliminate the waste of motion within your work cells is that of 5S; 5S challenges your team to review each and every step of their operation and eliminate the symptoms of the seven wastes. These changes will on the whole cost you nothing other than the time of your team but will result in efficiency gains in the order of 10% to 30% in most cases as well as making your work area safer preventing accidents (and the law suit that follows.)

8. Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
4. WAITING
How often do you spend time waiting for an answer from another department in your organization, or waiting for a delivery from a supplier or an engineer to come and fix a machine? We tend to spend an enormous amount of time waiting for things in our working lives (and personal lives too), this is an obvious waste. The waste of waiting disrupts flow, one of the main principles of Lean Manufacturing, as such it is one of the more serious of the seven wastes or 7 mudas of lean manufacturing.

9. Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
4. WAITING- how to eliminate or reduce
Balancing of your production processes using Takt time and controls boards will help ensure that the processes are better matched with regards to cycle times. Improving machine reliability and quality using Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and quality tools. Reducing overproduction and inventory to minimize transport and movement between and within cells. Implement Standard Operating Procedures to ensure that standards and methods are clear. Use visual methods of planning combined with daily cell meetings to ensure that everyone is clear what is required for the day.

10. Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
5. OVERPRODUCTION
The most serious of all of the seven wastes; the waste of overproduction is making too much or too early. This is usually because of working with oversize batches, long lead times, poor supplier relations and a host of other reasons. Overproduction leads to high levels of inventory which mask many of the problems within your organization. The aim should be to make only what is required when it is required by the customer, the philosophy of Just in Time (JIT), however many companies work on the principle of Just in Case!

11. Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
5. OVERPRODUCTION-How to reduce or eliminate
Once we understand the issues we need to implement the principles of lean manufacturing, identify the value stream using tools such a value stream mapping, process mapping, spaghetti diagrams and a host of analytical tools that are available to us. Then we need to make that value flow by rearranging our work place, creating production cells that contain all of the required processes and moving away from functional layouts. Using smaller, simpler, dedicated machines rather than “super machines” that have to handle every product in the factory. We need to tackle set up times on our equipment to enable the production of smaller batches using the technique of SMED, Single Minute Exchange of Die. Once we have done this we can use the ideas of just in time manufacturing to enable the production of product only when it is ordered, using techniques such as Kanban to enable the Pull of production through our processes. In doing this we not only eliminate the overproduction in our processes but we begin to eliminate and highlight the causes of many other problems within our processes that are hidden by all of this inventory.

12. Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
6. OVER-PROCESSING
The waste of Overprocessing is where we use inappropriate techniques, oversize equipment, working to tolerances that are too tight, perform processes that are not required by the customer and so forth. All of these things cost us time and money. One of the biggest examples of over-processing in most companies is that of the “mega machine” that can do an operation faster than any other, but every process flow has to be routed through it causing scheduling complications, delays and so forth. In lean; small is beautiful, use small appropriate machines where they are needed in the flow, not break the flow to route through a highly expensive monstrosity that the accountants insist is kept 

13. Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
6. OVER-PROCESSING-How to reduce or eliminate
To prevent the waste of overprocessing there are a number of simple steps that can be undertaken, as part of your initial 5S implementation instigate the use of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) to provide written instructions for all of your employees. This is extremely easy in today’s age of digital cameras and word processing packages. These SOPs will ensure the standardization of methods across shifts and personnel, combined with on the job training they are an highly effective way to improve the quality of your product as well as ensuring the reduction in Overprocessing. These SOPs combined with quality standards can also help with regard to clarifying specifications and acceptance standards. Examine your process routes, are you using expensive processes where there are simpler cheaper methods?

14. Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
7. DEFECTS
The most obvious of the seven wastes, although not always the easiest to detect before they reach your customers. Quality errors that cause defects invariably cost you far more than you expect. Every defective item requires rework or replacement, it wastes resources and materials, it creates paperwork, it can lead to lost customers. The Waste of Defects should be prevented where possible, better to prevent than to try to detect them, implementation of pokayoke systems and autonomation can help to prevent defects from occurring.

15. Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
7. DEFECTS-How to reduce or eliminate
There are many techniques out there to help you to identify and eliminate wastes; however within lean manufacturing we wish to prevent them occurring in the first place. This prevention of defects is achieved by a number of different techniques from autonomation / Jidoka (Machines with “human” intelligence that are able to detect when a non standard event has occurred) through to Pokayoke devices that detect if a product is defective, either preventing the process from running or highlighting the defect for action. We also implement standard operations procedures (SOP) and training to ensure that the correct methods are undertaken and standards achieved. The most important factor however is the empowerment of teams to solve and prevent their own problems. By harnessing the talents of your employees you are able to quickly and efficiently prevent the occurrence of defects.

16. Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
8. TALENT OR CREATIVITY
The waste of Talent, creativity or your people is an addition to the seven wastes of lean manufacturing (Muda), it is the failure to make good use of your employees; all of them. Your employees are your most valuable resources when it comes to ensuring that the business runs smoothly and continuously improves.
Without the involvement and loyalty of all of your employees your company will fail to compete as effectively as it could do with their help. In today’s global marketplace we need every advantage that we can get to maintain and improve our businesses.

17. Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
8. TALENT OR CREATIVITY-How to reduce or eliminate
Team working, training, and clear leadership are required to begin to involve all of your employees with your companies drive towards perfection, for continuous improvement you will need to involve each and every one of your employees. Measures and compensation packages should reflect the need for people to work together to improve the company. Encourage people to take ownership of their areas, processes, and products to promote a sense of pride and involvement. Your people are your biggest asset, respect them, nurture them and involve them in your business and you will reap the rewards.

18. Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
Eliminating the seven +1 wastes is something that can be done through the implementation of Lean and the various lean tools, however the focus of your implementation should not be to identify and remove waste. Instead you should use the principles of lean manufacturing to identify value according to the customer and make those value adding processes flow through your organization at the pull of the customer.
This approach helps you to make your value adding processes more efficient and causes the waste to literally “dissolve.”
Approaching lean from a perspective of removing the 7 wastes rather than making value flow however usually ends up with us making non-value adding processes more efficient and we get better and better at doing things that the customer does not want. To eliminate the 7 wastes of lean we have to focus on the lean principles and value as perceived by our customers.

19. For more information please contact us
Lean
Manufacturing 7+1 wastes
For more information please contact us
Miguel Diaz
Mex (477)
USA +1 (469)