Waste - Seven types of waste in Lean Manufacturing

Seven types of waste

Waste in any organization or process is referred to the misuse of resources, production not fit for sale or resources that tie up cash and inventory while providing little or no benefit to the organization or its customers. These resources could be better used elsewhere in the organization invested in value creating operations or opportunities. The aim of the lean enterprise should be about identifying and eliminating waste from their systems and operations, and extracting as much outputs as they can from minimal inputs. In lean manufacturing there are seven main classifications of waste, or the so called seven wastes. These are:

-Waiting: time in which people or goods are idle and are not adding value to the finished good or service. This could be due to bottlenecks or production downtime upstream from a sub process.

-Transport:unnecessary movement of materials or goods, this includes work in progress (WIP) from one part of the plant or process to another.

-Re-work: this is rectifying or re-processing faulty goods and services.

Over production: producing finish goods in excess of customer

Motion/Movement: this refers to the unnecessary movement or extra steps in a process due to inefficient plant layouts and other barriers to a continuous work flow.

Inventory: Inventory refers to the build up of raw materials,WIP , or finish goods that are not yet required by the downstream process or customer.

Rejects: refers to the goods and services produced which do not meet customer standards, and are not saleable. The ultimate goal of a lean enterprise or lean organization is to have minimal waste within their operations.