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The Seven Wastes (Muda) of Lean

The seven wastes (TIMWOOD)
  • Transportation: The unnecessary movement of products, materials, or information. Excessive transportation adds no value to a product and increases the risk of damage, loss, or delay.
    • Example: Moving materials between multiple non-adjacent departments in a factory or transferring a patient multiple times within a hospital during their visit.
  • Inventory: Any excess stock of raw materials, work-in-progress, or finished goods that is not needed for immediate production or sale. Excess inventory ties up capital, requires storage space, and can hide other underlying process problems.
    • Example: Overstocked office supplies, a warehouse full of unsold products, or too many patients waiting for a doctor.
  • Motion/Movement: The unnecessary or excessive physical movement of people or equipment within a work area. This includes reaching, bending, lifting, and walking that adds no value to the product or service.
    • Example: A poorly organized workspace that forces an employee to repeatedly walk across the room to retrieve a tool, or a nurse having to search for medical supplies.
  • Waiting: Any idle time experienced by people, materials, or equipment when the process is halted or delayed. This disrupts the flow of value and increases lead time.
    • Example: An assembly line stopping due to a late parts delivery, a server being offline, or a customer waiting on hold.
  • Overproduction: Producing more products than are needed, faster than they are needed, or earlier than they are needed by the customer. Overproduction is considered the worst waste because it often leads to other wastes, like excess inventory.
    • Example: Manufacturing large batches of a product that sit in a warehouse, or a marketing team creating excessive materials that aren't used.
  • Over-processing: Using inappropriate techniques, complex equipment, or adding more steps to a process than the customer requires or values. It is performing extra work that adds no value.
    • Example: A service that requires a customer to fill out the same information on multiple forms or a chef garnishing a dish in a way that the customer doesn't care about.
  • Defects/Rework: Any product or service that does not meet the required quality standards and requires rework, repair, or is scrapped entirely. Defects are costly in terms of time, materials, and potential loss of customer trust.
    • Example: A software bug, a manufacturing error that leads to a product recall, or an incorrect dosage of medication.

 


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