Eight Wastes Caused by Workplace Systems

 It pays therefore to develop your management system and use it to recognize the opportunities for waste removal from the system that determines work processes, habits and routines. Work study, lean manufacturing, lean administration and lean service principles tell us that the eight opportunities are:

 This means people, information or materials are moving between processes unnecessarily. Take a look at the design of your workplace. Track the movement of the order, information or materials from start to finish. Can the distance travelled be shortened by changing the layout?

The second type of waste is materials or information parked or stored and not being used. Inventory costs money. Even electronic data and information cost energy to store however temporarily. We should work at the rate that the results of our work are needed by our customers (pull instead of push). Work is meant to add value to materials, data or information and these inputs should arrive just before you need them.

When people, parts, materials or information move unnecessarily within a process you are wasting time that could be spent adding value for customers. How long does it take you to find the things you need to do your job? Take a look at the layout of your work area. Does everything have its place and is it in its place when you need it?

People, parts or information waiting for machines, information or materials again wastes time that could be spent doing work that customers would be willing to pay for. Customers are not willing, for example, to pay for the team waiting for a server, computer or printer to work. Organizations serious about reducing this source of waste are measuring the availability of critical items and removing the root causes of any lack of availability

Making goods or delivering services faster or slower than sold is a problem. Measure the pace of ordering and plan the resources necessary to make the goods at that rate. Balance the outputs of sales processes (orders) with production processes (goods and services) and vice versa. Deliver your goods and services at the same rate that customers order your products.

Taking unnecessary action to deliver goods and services is caused when organizations are unsure of the customer’s requirements. The system should translate the customer’s needs (wants are psychological needs) into product requirements. It should then convert the product specifications into process requirements. The system provides the necessary processes (resources and controls) to result in satisfied customers. Often one hears of “exceeding expectations” but this too is waste.

Making scrap or doing work more than once is caused by relying on inspection instead of process control. All goods and services are the result of processes. We would not rely on inspection to verify the packing of a parachute! Design goods and services for ease of conformity and design capable processes to result in the goods and services being right the first time.

Abilities, skills and knowledge available but not used is the eighth type of waste. Competence is the product of two key processes to your management system: recruiting for abilities and training for skills and knowledge. Poor leaders expose the weaknesses instead engaging the strengths of their employees. Good leaders fully engage their employees in teams so their strengths are fully utilized and melded with the strengths of others on the team to satisfy customers and make improvements.

Note how these types of waste slow the rate at which the core process can add value.Eliminate them by identifying waste as nonconformity and using PARs and CARs within your process-based management system to bring more focus on the customer.

Learn how our clients’ process-based management systems work on our QMS Lead Auditor classes. These classes feature a mythical company, that is trying to be lean, whose system is being audited by our students on behalf of a prospective customer.