Waste
Waste is the translated Japanese word called muda. While developing the Toyota Production System, Taiichi Ohno identified a list of wastes that would impede the efficient use of resources within an organization:
- Waste of overproduction (largest waste)
- Waste of time on hand (waiting)
- Waste of transportation
- Waste of processing itself
- Waste of stock at hand
- Waste of movement
- Waste of making defective products
- Waste of underutilized workers
Waste has become the the most popular area to focus on improvements, since it is the most familiar to implement, and the end result of issues caused by muri and mura.
There have been numerous attempts to create an acronym to make the wastes easier to remember, such as:
- TIM WOODS (free download)
- Transportation
- Inventory
- Motion
- Waiting
- Overproduction
- Overprocessing
- Defects
- Skills
- MR TOYOTA
- Motion
- Reserves (Inventory)
- Transport
- Overproduction
- Yield Problems (Defects)
- Over Processing
- Talents
- Awaiting Availability (Waiting)
- TIM WOODY (Chick-fil-A)
- Transportation
- Inventory
- Motion
- Waiting
- Over/under production
- Over complicating
- Defects
- Your team members
- DOWNTIME
- Defects
- Overproduction
- Waiting
- Non-utilized Talent
- Transportation
- Inventory
- Motion
- Excess Processing
- DOWNTIME (Weber Grills)
- Defects
- Over process
- Waiting
- Not using resources
- Transport
- Inventories
- Motion
- Enough production
- WORMPITS
- Waiting
- Overproduction
- Rejects
- Motion
- Processing
- Inventory
- Transportation
- Skills
- HOSPITAL
- Halting (Waiting)
- Overproducing
- Slips (Defects)
- Processes – Non Value Added (Overprocessing)
- Inventory
- Transportation
- Action (Motion)
- Lack of Employee Engagement
- CLOSED MITTS or CLOSEDMITT
- Complexity
- Labor (Motion or overprocessing)
- Overproduction
- Space (also Inventory)
- Energy
- Defects
- Materials (Transportation)
- Inventory
- Time (Motion and Overprocessing)
- Transportation
- COMMWIP
- Correction (Defects)
- Over Production
- Motion
- Material (Transportation)
- Waiting
- Inventory
- Processing (overprocessing)
Other types of waste have been proposed, including:
- Management’s resistance to change
- Confusion
- Self-doubt
- Not being green
- Overspending
In order to let people practicing seeing waste, Ohno would often draw a circle on the ground, and ask his staff to stand in the circle for an extended period of time (hours). This became known as the Ohno Circle.
Additional Resources
- 8 Wastes of Lean [A Guide to Manufacturing Wastes]– creativesafetysupply.com
- DOWNTIME = Waste– 5snews.com
- Waste Mnemonics 101– lean-news.com
- Waste 101– kaizen-news.com
- Eliminating Waste using these 5 Steps– blog.creativesafetysupply.com
- Changeover – Creating Flow and Eliminating Waste– blog.5stoday.com
- The Benefits of Lean Manufacturing– iecieeechallenge.org
- Lean Six Sigma Can Improve Environmental Performance– creativesafetypublishing.com
- Using Kaizen with Kanban– jakegoeslean.com