What Is Mura and Why Do You Need to Remove It?

What is Mura, and why should you care about it? If your team constantly swings between burnout and boredom — one week drowning in deadlines, the next staring at their screens with nothing urgent — you’re not alone. Many organizations fall into this feast-or-famine cycle.

But the real issue isn’t just frustration or inefficiency. It’s something more profound — a hidden productivity killer that quietly drains time, energy, and morale. That hidden culprit is Mura.

Mura is one of the three core types of waste in Lean manufacturing, alongside Muda (waste) and Muri (overburden). It’s the invisible force behind inconsistent workflows, missed deadlines, uneven workloads, and burnout — even in high-performing teams.

You might be trimming other types of waste in your processes and still feel stuck. That’s because Mura, the root of workflow instability, is still in play.

In this guide, we’ll explore:

• What Mura is (and why it matters more than you think)
• How it quietly wreaks havoc on your team and output
• Ways to identify Mura in your current workflow
• Proven strategies to eliminate it and build smoother, more sustainable processes

By the end, you won’t just know what Mura is — you’ll be equipped to spot it, eliminate it, and protect your team from its long-term effects.

What Is Mura?

Mura’s definition explains it as unevenness or inconsistency in your workflow. Instead of flowing smoothly, work comes in unpredictable waves, creating chaos in your system. In everyday language, Mura can be compared to the bumps and potholes in a smooth road. 

Coming from the Japanese manufacturing principles of the Toyota Production System, it’s one of the Three Ms that waste resources and hurt performance.

Muda	Obvious waste and non-value activities
Muri	Overburden on the people or equipment
Mura	Unevenness that causes chaos and disturbed workflow

You may wonder why it’s only Mura that matters so much. You can try to eliminate obvious waste for the whole day, but if your workflow is inconsistent, new waste keeps being added. In simpler words, it’s like trying to bail water from a boat without fixing the leak. 

The Real Impact of Mura on Your Work

When Mura takes hold in your workplace, you’ll notice:

• Teams that are constantly switching between being overworked and underutilized
• Quality problems that spike during rush periods
• People burn out during busy times and disengage during slow times
• Missed deadlines despite periods of intense work
• Resources (people, equipment, tools) that are poorly used

In absolute numbers, organizations struggling with Mura typically see:

The Real Impact of Mura on Your Work

The following are the prominent signs that you’ll start noticing once Mura takes hold in your workplace. 

❌Teams will constantly switch between being overworked and underutilized

❌ Quality problems spike during rush periods

❌ People burn out during busy times and disengage during slow times

❌ Missed deadlines despite periods of intense work

❌ Resources (people, equipment, tools) are poorly used. 

According to research on lean implementation from organizations like the Lean Enterprise Institute, workflow inconsistency has measurable impacts. Let’s observe it through prominent numbers and stats.

➡️ A study published in the International Journal of Operations & Production Management found that companies with high levels of process variability experienced 15-30% longer lead times compared to similar companies with more consistent workflows. 

➡️ Another research from the Quality Management Journal identifies that defect rates during ”rush periods” can be 2-3 times higher than normal production.

➡️ A 2019 study by Gallup found that unpredictable workloads were associated with a 23% increase in employee burnout and 17% lower engagement scores.

Even Toyota’s case studies have demonstrated that addressing Mura through their Heijunka practices reduced production costs by 10-15%. Meanwhile, quality metrics were improved, too.

The “Hockey Stick Effect”: Mura in Action

The clearest example of Mura happens in teams that work in sprints or cycles. You might recognize this pattern:

Teams working in sprints or cycles experience the clearest examples of Mura. You might also recognize the following pattern:

1. Work doesn’t start immediately after planning, but slowly
2. The pace gradually increases
3. There’s a mad rush in the final days to finish and wrap up
4. The team works late nights as the deadline approaches
5. Quality suffers when teams focus on making it to the deadline
6. The same cycle repeats in the next sprint

When you graph this pattern, it looks like a hockey stick – flat. Then, a sharp upward curve at the end can be seen.

Also, studies of the development teams exhibit that the final 2-3 days of a two-week sprint often account for nearly half the work. But – it’s also when most of the defects are produced. 

How Mura Spreads Through Your Organization

Mura spreads throughout the organization, and the situation becomes even worse when multiple teams work together. 

Here’s a scenario that can help you imagine how it spreads throughout. 

1. The design team finishes their work in a last-minute rush
2. They hand it over to the development team way later than planned 
3. Developers now have less time, so they rush and cut corners
4. Testing gets compressed, and as a result, quality issues happen 
5. Customer support gets flooded with problems after release
6. Everyone blames each other. Meanwhile, the real culprit is the uneven workflow

This isn’t inefficiency only. Such a situation results in toxic cycles that damage team relationships and customer satisfaction. 

How to Spot Mura in Your Workplace

Before you can fix Mura, you need to find it. Here are some simple ways to identify workflow unevenness:

We need to fix Mura. However, before we can enable ourselves to do that, we first need to find it. So, here are some simple ways to identify workflow unevenness:

1. Visual Management with Kanban

A Kanban board gives you a clear picture of your workflow. Look for:

Using a Kanban board is of great significance as it gives you a clear picture of your workflow. You, therefore, must look for:

• Work piling up in specific columns (bottlenecks)
• Columns that are sometimes empty and sometimes overflowing
• Work that moves quickly through some stages but gets stuck in others

If you spot these signs on the Kanban board, setting WIP limits will help you prevent overloading and create a smoother flow. 

2. Track Your Team’s Rhythm with Flow Diagrams

A flow diagram shows your workflow over time:

• Each colored band represents a stage, such as To DO, In Progress, Done
• Parallel bands mean stable flow
• Widening bands show bottlenecks and unevenness

What to do if it happens? – The bottlenecks? Simple tracking can help. Count how many items your team completes each day of a sprint. If the numbers vary widely day-to-day, you’re actually seeing Mura.

3. Listen to Your Team

Sometimes the easiest way to spot Mura is to listen. You might hear your teams saying things like:

• We always rush at the end of the month
• I’m swamped this week, but I had nothing to do last week
• We never have time to do quality work at the end of a project

What are these? Clear signals of workflow unevenness. 

Solutions to Eliminate Mura: 

What Works for Teams

Break work into smaller, similar-sized pieces  Create smaller chunks that can be completed more consistently, instead of handling large, complex tasks with varied periods.	Set and respect WIP limits.  Don’t let work pile up at any stage. If a column is complete, team members should instantly clear it before starting new work.
Create a “done means done” definition.  Avoid calling things “almost done” for days. Make sure the work is truly complete because if it is, it flows more predictably.	Plan for capacity, not just deadlines  Consider the amount of work your team can actually handle – don’t just consider getting the things done because you want them to be.

Real-World Examples: Here’s What Worked for Organizations

Software company Menlo Innovations tackled Mura with these practical steps:

1. The software company Menlo Innovations handled Mura with these practical steps:
2. They broke all work into standard one-week chunks
3. They implemented pair working with daily rotation to spread knowledge
4. They did weekly planning using physical cards to balance workload visually
5. They opened their planning process so everyone could see and understand the capacity

The results were massive. Their on-time delivery jumped from 60% to over 95%, while practically eliminating overtime.

Spotify also qualifies for the list of organizations, successfully knocking out Mura and improving development flow. It ensured improvement by:

Limiting how many of projects that can be in progress across the entire company	Limiting how many of projects that can be in progress in the whole company
Setting aside buffer time (about 20% of capacity) to handle unexpected work	Releasing minor updates continuously instead of big batches

By implementing these changes, Spotify cut its delivery time in half while improving quality.

Simple Steps to Start Tackling Mura Today

Easy! You don’t need to overhaul your entire operation overnight. Start slowly with these steps:

1. Make your workflow visible by creating a simple board that shows the stages work goes through. 
2. Measure your current state by tracking how long work takes and how much gets done each day.
3. Identify your most significant unevenness issues by looking for patterns of rushing followed by idleness. 
4. Experiment with one improvement. To do so, try the WIP limit on your most overloaded stage, or break down your most significant work.
5. Evaluate and adjust! After a few weeks, check if the flow has improved, and adapt your approach accordingly. 

The Rewards of Smoother Flow

A manufacturing plant that implemented flow balancing techniques saw defects drop by 22% in just one year. Another organization, a software company, reduced delivery time by 53% after addressing workflow unevenness. 

Organizations that successfully reduce Mura see:

• More predictable work delivery
• Less burnout and stress among team members
• Higher quality outputs
• Fewer defects
• Improved collaboration between teams
• Better customer satisfaction from consistent delivery
• Lower costs from better resource utilization

Conclusion

Mura – the unevenness in workflow can be deadly for the entire organization and work environment. The best way to avoid or overcome this? Here are some of the strategies.

• Making the workflow visible
• Breaking work into manageable pieces
• Setting WIP limits

Organizations must learn that eliminating Mura isn’t innovative business only. This, in fact, is the foundation of a healthier workplace and more sustainable success. Give it a try!