Identifying & Understanding the 8 Wastes

When considering potential waste in a medical manufacturing facility, most precision manufacturer’s first thoughts are only on the material waste. In fact, there are 8 wastes that you can see below. Waste should be considered any action that does not directly add value to a product. Therefore, by reducing these non-value-add steps and waste you can produce a satisfactory product and maximize profits.

The acronym DOWNTIME is an easy way to remember the 8 wastes. In any business, time is money, therefore additional time spent on rework, scrap, or fixing incorrect information is all non-value add activity. This blog will help to identify waste around the facility and suggest ways to reduce it.

• Defects
• Overproduction
• Waiting
• Non-Utilized Talent
• Transportation
• Inventory
• Motion
• Extra-Processing

Defects

Defects can be defined as any product or service that is out of specification tolerance. These defects typically require additional resources or time to correct and are therefore considered a waste. The best way to reduce defects is to have a good quality management system that can identify defects as quickly as possible.

Overproduction

Overproduction occurs when the manufacturer spends additional time producing too much product before it is required and sold. Both the production supervisor and scheduling manager should be aware of product demand in order to best determine how much product should be produced. This waste can be immediately fixed with the implementation of a Kanban system. A Kanban system is a method of regulating products and materials within the factory through automatic replenishment of finished goods and factory supplies effectively producing a pull system.

Waiting

Waiting is another time-related waste because nothing is being done to a product while waiting occurs and therefore does not add any value. If operators are waiting in a multi-step process due to a slower previous step, they are wasting time. On the other hand, if the finished product is being stored in the facility for long periods before being shipped, it is also considered waiting because it cannot be invoiced until it is shipped. This waste can be eliminated by balancing the amount of workload for each operator. By reducing this type of waste, productivity and throughput are greatly increased.

Non-utilized Talent

The biggest asset to any company is its employees. It is considered a waste to not capitalize on each employee's potential. By under-utilizing employees that can manage a higher workload, or underestimating an employee’s talents, skills and knowledge, a company is potentially limiting its own growth potential. This is a difficult waste to discover, but it is important to give each employee the opportunity to take on an additional workload, participate in projects outside of their own role and learn new skills and abilities. I have found cross training to be an excellent way to give operators the potential to succeed in other areas of the business.

Transportation

Transportation occurs when raw materials, information, or finished goods are relocated around the facility several times before being used or shipped. The transport of product brings no additional value to the product itself, therefore the amount of time spent transporting materials or products around the facility should be limited. Value stream mapping is one lean manufacturing tool used to reduce wasted time in transporting goods. A value stream map analyzes the flow of materials and products in a production process. Another important lean manufacturing tool is a spaghetti chart, which will help to track the distance each employee and raw material travels before a job is completed.

Inventory

Inventory is a very important waste to keep track of, because raw materials both take up space in the facility and cost money. In order to make a good profit on a product, you want the price of a product to exceed the cost of materials used. If expensive materials are waiting to be processed, they are not making money. Inventory is considered a very specific instance of waiting. When inventory is high, more raw materials are waiting to be worked on. Inventory optimization can be achieved through Kanban systems as we discussed earlier. By developing a pull system for all raw materials and factory supplies, a manufacturer can improve storage area while reducing inventory cost and risk.

Motion

Excess motion in a process can lead to decreased productivity levels. By limiting operator motion throughout a process, the operator will have higher throughput because they will be able to repeat the motions faster. This is a difficult waste to identify, but small changes to the process itself will have larger lasting effects. This waste can be identified and reduced by performing time and motion studies that analyze each of the operator’s movements. The reduction of the operator’s footsteps in a process can also be identified using a spaghetti chart as we discussed earlier.

Extra Processing

Extra processing is considered performing any effort that is not completely necessary or effective in producing a functional product. Additional processing can be a difficult waste to identify. However, these extra steps are crucial to reduce or eliminate because they can take extra time to complete and are often unnecessary to the customer. This can include re-work loops, completion of unnecessary paperwork, or redundant process steps. When examining a process it is important to consider both what the customer is looking for and what steps of the process the customer is paying for. This waste can be reduced through a root cause analysis by asking the 5 whys.  

conclusion

In lean manufacturing, waste can be defined as any process step or action that does not directly result in increasing the value of a product. There are in fact 8 different types of waste that can be found throughout any facility that can lead to lower levels of productivity. Remember the acronym DOWNTIME. By reducing the 8 wastes found around the facility you can effectively increase the profit margin on the product itself. This article will help you to identify each of the 8 wastes and as well as provide the lean manufacturing methods and tools to help reduce or eliminate them.