The 8 Wastes in Your Business

All businesses are full of waste.  Moreover, the waste is preventing you from higher profit, shorter lead times, better quality, less headaches, better teamwork, reduced costs and so much more.

There are eight forms of waste that you need to be looking for at all times.  The first seven were originally identified by Taiichi Ohno, the late Toyota executive who also pioneered other Lean concepts such as JIT and TPS.  Each of these categories of waste should be treated with equal importance, none are more important than another.

1. Transportation - Using people to move material, information and supplies is a waste.  Ideally, any and all transportation should be automated.  People need to be used for value added work and moving stuff around is NOT value added work.  Examples of transportation waste would be people pushing stuff on carts from here to there and forklifts moving material/pallets around.

2. Inventory - No inventory is ideal, but sometimes a small buffer inventory is needed due to lead times or minimum order quantities.  Anywhere inventory is needed there should be a kanban in place to manage the inventory based on pull from the customer.

3. Motion - This waste is all about ergonomics.  Everything needed for a task should be within arms reach; moreover, there shouldn't be any excess bending, turning or reaching for tools or parts.

4. Waiting - Waiting for ANYTHING is a waste; people, material, supplies or information.

5. Over Production - Making too many _____.  Have you ever made too many copies of a document?  Have you ever produced more widgets "just in case"?  Do you double-enter information anywhere in you business/supply chain?  If you answered yes, then you're producing waste.

6. Over Processing - This is using inappropriate tools to achieve a quality product or service.  Two great examples would be using a dull axe to chop down a tree or cracking a walnut using a sledgehammer.

7. Defects - These are any mistakes or errors, both internally and externally.  If a product is produced that does not meet the customer's expectations then a defect has been produced.  When a process produces a defect the process should stop immediately, fix the problem that created the defect and only when the problem (and the root of the problem) is corrected should the process continue.

8. Skills - Whenever you don't take full advantage of your people's talents and abilities then you are wasting them.  Involve your people in problem solving, kaizen and improving your business.

Tim Woods, just remember Tim Woods and you will remember the eight forms of waste.  What do I mean by Tim Woods?  Look at the first letters of each of the wastes.  Taa daaaa.

Now what?  Get out from behind your desk, talk to your people/team, go to the gemba, look for the waste and ask your team to help.