Episode B.004 MUDA or Waste

The 3 Pillars of Lean: Remove Unevenness, Remove Overburden, Remove Waste.

• Unevenness 
• Overburden
• Waste

MUDA - Any activity in your process that does not add value. MUDA is not creating value for the customer. In short: WASTE.

Type I Muda: Non-value-added tasks which seem to be essential. Business conditions need to be changed to eliminate this type of waste.

Type II Muda: Non-value-added tasks which can be eliminated immediately.
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1. Overproduction: Creating more that the customer needs or sooner that the customer needs it thus leading to inventory or decreased margins.

• To produce sooner, faster or in greater quantities than the absolute customer demand;
• Making too much, too early or “Just in Case”;
• Overproduction discourages a smooth flow of goods or services;
• Takes the focus away from what the customer really wants;
• Leads to excessive inventory.

Caused by:

• Historical buying push rather than lean pull;
• Large batch sizes;
• Looks better to be busy;
• Poor people utilization;
• Lack of customer focus.

2. Waiting: People or parts that wait for a work cycle to be completed

• Where are the bottlenecks;
• What are the major causes of lost machine or people availability;
• What are we doing to improve machine and people availability;
• People waiting on machinery.

Caused by:

• Shortages & unreliable supply chain;
• Lack of multi-skilling/flexibility;
• Downtime/Breakdown;
• Ineffective production planning;
• Quality,design,engineering Issues;
• ‘voodoo’ processes.

3. Transporting or Motion: Any movement within the workspace that cannot be done more ergonomically or efficiently, such as picking heavy objects up from floor level to a bench or other working area. Unnecessary movement of parts between processes.

• Complex material flow paths;
• Poor close coupling;
• Wasted floor space;
• Unnecessary material handling;
• Potential damage to products.

Caused by:

• Badly designed process/cell;
• Poor value stream flow;
• Complex material flows;
• Sharing of equipment.

4. Over Processing: Doing more to the product than is required by the customer such as over specifying tolerances causing slower more expensive processes to be utilized. Processing beyond the standard required by the customer. By improving processing efficiency we ultimately use less resource to achieve the same customer satisfaction
Caused by:

• Out of date standards;
• Attitude - ‘Always done it like this’;
• Not understanding the process;
• Lack of innovation & improvement;
• Lack of standard operational procedures.

5. Inventory: Inventory many times used as a buffer to hide all of the problems in your system. It insulates you from supplier failure, poor scheduling, breakdowns, poor quality and many other problems. In addition inventory requires space, transporting and ties up your cash. Any raw material, work in progress (WIP) or finished goods which are not having value added to them.
Caused by:

• Production schedule not level;
• Inaccurate forecasting;
• Excessive downtime/set up;
• Push instead of pull;
• Large batching;
• Unreliable suppliers.

6. Excess Motion: Any movement within the workspace that cannot be done more ergonomically or efficiently, such as picking heavy objects up from floor level to a bench or other working area.

• Adds cost;
• Motion is the movement of “man”;
• Waste motion occurs when individuals move more than is necessary for the process to be completed.

Caused by:

• No standard operating procedure;
• Poor housekeeping;
• Badly designed cell;
• Inadequate training.

7. Defects or Rejects: Probably the first thing that comes to mind when someone says waste in an industrial setting, the costs of defects is usually a factor of ten greater than just the material costs involved. A defect is a component which the customer would deem unacceptable to pass the quality standard.

• Defects reduce or discourage customer satisfaction;
• Defects have to be rectified;
• Rectification costs money with regard to time effort and materials;
• Defects in the field will lose customers;
• Right first time is the key.

Caused by:

• Out of control/Incapable processes;
• Lack of skill, training & on the job support;
• Inaccurate design & engineering;
• Machine inaccuracy;
• Black art processes.