Getting More For Less - The 8 Wastes

Where do you go from here? You have cut back on staff, got the best prices on materials, you are energy efficient but you are still under pressure on pricing? This is a common dilemma in business.

There is always room for making substantial improvements however, particularly in the areas of Quality, Cost and Delivery, by taking a fresh look at everything you do in terms of the 8 Wastes.

Associated with Lean Manufacturing the 8 Wastes are:

Travel - excessive movement of product, stock, materials etc

Inventory - too much stock, work in progress (WIP), raw materials or supplies

Motion - unnecessary operative / staff movement

Waiting - idle time between operations or activity

Over Processing - doing more than is required by the customer(s)

Over Production - producing more than is necessary

Defects - errors, poor quality, rework and scrap

Skills - not fully utilising the skills available within the business

The acronym 'TIMWOODS' is used as a means of remembering these wastes. 

Identifying waste is a critical task in any business and should be within everyone's role or remit. However, this should be approached with caution as it can result in the creation of a blame culture.

Reducing Waste

Waste identification is a good thing. The ability to identify waste in the business, and to have strategies for dealing with the wastes identified can prove to be very cost effective in terms of the effort involved.

You can use the simple Waste Matrix below to provide an overview of the symptoms of waste which may be present within your organisation and to identify some of the strategies and tools for dealing with them.

Waste reduction needs to be part of an overall improvement strategy, whether you use a Lean approach, Six Sigma tools or any other Continuous Improvement methodology, the objective of any change should be focused upon:

• Reducing Costs
• Improving Quality
• Improving Delivery

These measures are referred to as Q C D