Get rid of the Seven Basic Wastes!

Those who read the value article know. What Did We Say? “A product and/or service that maximizes the customer’s expectations” So far so good; but what about the parts that don’t match? This is hidden in the same article. This is exactly what Lean calls WASTE.

As such, it is necessary to address the details of the non-overlapping sides of this concept, which we have explained in its most basic form.

We claim to be customer-centric, giving excessive “Value” to customer demands, those who say so are either deceiving themselves or simply don’t understand. what Lean Value truly means. Perhaps we need to understand what Waste is in order to grasp Value. Waste isn’t merely about “let’s keep the lights off, not leave taps running, or not leaving bread on the table to go stale” kind of thing.

Waste is anything that doesn’t add value in terms of customer demands, in short. From overproducing, waiting unnecessarily, transporting here and there, to making wrong processes that disrupt production, creating stockpiles and wandering among these peaks, fixing and reprocessing parts you’ve produced – everything, absolutely everything, is a form of waste. In short, anything unnecessary is waste.

“Who determines necessity then?” you might ask, but let me reiterate: whoever defines Value does!

These wastes are akin to the seven deadly sins in Christianity. They are your business’s sins. If you commit these, your products won’t make it to the market, the afterlife of your goods! It’s that simple.

The Japanese term for waste is MUDA. And its close relatives are MURI and MURA, collectively known as the 3Ms in Japanese terminology.

Now, what are these seven great sins of business? What are the seven basic MUDAs?

The first one is OVERPRODUCTION, producing more than what the customer or process flow requires.

“What’s the harm in overproducing? We’ll eventually sell them!” Don’t deceive yourself; the market is tough now. These overproduced products will suddenly explode in your hands! The next thing you know, the sky is full of STOCK. This leads to the second of the Seven Major Wastes: INVENTORY.

When you stockpile so much, those cute little stockpiles in your warehouse start smiling at you. And then, you have to MOVE all those goods around, pile them up, and then unload them when the time comes. That’s the waste of TRANSPORTATION.

As if those stocks weren’t enough, when you scatter machines and production units around the factory like colonies, you end up with ants wandering between these product peaks and machine colonies, seemingly working but mostly just wandering around. Blue-collar ants, a lot of them. That’s the waste of MOTION.

“Some might argue, ‘We’re not producing. Since we’re not making stock, are we stocking just for fun, or are we doing it to safeguard ourselves from material shortages and breakdowns?'” Well, those material shortage and breakdown situations are themselves examples of the waste of WAITING. That makes five!

When machines are faulty and you employ untrained and unqualified personnel, you end up producing a lot of defective and non-compliant products. Then comes the inevitable sight in every business: repair and sorting sections, rework stations, inspection, quality control units, and so forth. Well, if you’re producing within the process, why not produce quality at the same place? Then, FIX when you have to. You have no choice but to ensure quality right where you produce it. Otherwise it is impossible to get rid of the WASTE OF CORRECTION!

“But we understand the waste of defects, Lean Consultant, but we can’t seem to reduce costs compared to some competitors,” some might say. That’s because you’re wasting effort and time creating unwanted product features due to not defining value correctly in the products you produce without completing the integration of Design, Product Development, and Process Development. And on top of that, you’re making a lot of unnecessary PROCESSES to produce these unnecessary product features, subjecting the production process to the waste of PROCESSING. That’s the seventh waste. For those who want to delve deeper, I recommend my article titled “Quality Confusion.”

So, with all these unnecessary movements and processing, you end up with a bunch of extra products waiting around. Not just products but also operators waiting. Without producing anything. Just waiting as ants who only know muscle power and fatigue. “If I asked, ‘What is the duty of a blue-collar worker?’ what would you answer?

Is it to produce something with muscle power, to exert effort, to make money, or is it to use their brains to advance the environment they spend a third of their day in, constantly striving for improvement?”

We want you to use the brains of your blue collars, not just their muscles! And this brings us to the eighth, most dangerous waste: Not Utilizing the Talents of Employees!

With hopes that you cleanse yourself of these seven great sins by using brains and talents!