1. (And How to Tame Them) The Seven Deadly Wastes (And How to Tame Them)

2. 7 wastes…. 1. Waste from overproduction 2. Waste of waiting time 3. Transportation waste 4. Processing waste 5. Inventory waste 6. Waste of motion 7. Waste from product defect

3. 1. Overproduction due to · Extra inventory · Extra handling · Extra space · Extra interest charges · Extra machinery and equipment · Extra defects · Extra overhead · Extra people · Extra paperwork

4. 2. Waiting Waste from waiting is usually readily identifiable. E.g. Idle workers who have completed the required amount of work or employees who spend much time watching machines but are powerless to prevent problems. These are easy to spot. (By completing only the amount of work required, the capacity - both speed and volume - of each work station can be monitored. This will result in using only the machinery and personnel required for the minimum amount of time to meet production demands, thereby reducing waiting time)

5. 3. Transportation The transportation and double or triple handling of raw and finished goods are commonly observed wastes in many factories. Often the poorly conceived layout of the factory floor and storage facilities, which can mean long distance transportation and over-handling of materials. This situation is aggravated by factors such as temporary storage or frequent changes of storage locations. In order to eliminate transportation waste, improvements must be made in the areas of layout, process coordination, methods of transportation, housekeeping and general organization or the operation.

6. 4. Processing The processing method. In observing this type of waste, one often finds that maintenance and manufacturability are keys to eliminating it. If fixtures and machinery are well- maintained, they may require less labor on the part of the operator to produce a quality product. Regular preventative maintenance may also reduce defective pieces produced. When the principles of design for manufacture (DFM) are employed and manufacturability is taken into consideration in product design, processing waste can be reduced or eliminated before production even begins

7. 5. Inventory Inventory waste is closely connected with waste from overproduction. That is, the overproduction creates excess inventory which requires a list of extras including handling, space, interest charges, people and paperwork. Because of the often substantial cost associated with extra inventory, rigorous measures should be taken to reduce inventory levels

8. 6. Motion Waste of motion can be defined as whatever time is spent NOT adding value to the product or process: Movement ≠ Work This type of waste is most often revealed in the actions of the factory workers. It is clearly evident in searching for tools, pick and place of tools and parts kept out of immediate reach of the work station and especially by the walking done by one operator responsible for several machines. All of these can be eliminated by carefully planned layout and fixture selection

9. 7. Product Defects Waste from product defects is not simply those items rejected by quality control before shipment, but actually causes other types of waste throughout the entire manufacturing process. Waiting time is increased in subsequent processes, increasing costs and lead times Rework may be required to make the part usable, increasing labour costs Additional labour may be required for disassembly and reassembly Additional materials may be needed for replacement parts Sorting the defective from acceptable parts requires additional labour Scrapping the defective pieces wastes both the materials and the work already added

10. 8. Under utilisation of Employees

12. Case Study: Overproduction A mid-Atlantic sand and gravel company had a need to optimize the flow of raw materials between their mines and their processing facilities. Analysis revealed that transport trucks were being scheduled inefficiently with little coordination between the production of the mine and the demand of the processing facility. The mines would swing between extremes of overproduction and waiting simply to fill the available trucks, often producing excess materials which wasted labour, fuel and other resources by requiring redundant handling steps.

13. We designed and helped our client implement an improved scheduling process to coordinate mine production, truck transport and processing. Our client recognized significant savings of labor, storage and fuel resources while realizing a more orderly, predictable and flexible flow of materials and products.

14. Case Study: Waiting Our client was a Big 3 automobile manufacturer which sought to improve assembly line flow in one of its Midwest plants. Its work cell for making connecting rods suffered frequent delays caused by adjustments and maintenance operations on its tooling and machinery. Our analysis revealed that the buffer queue was inadequate causing small production variations in one manufacturing step to cascade down to delays for subsequent operations. Our solution was to design a FILO (first in, last out) style queuing tower to buffer small variations in the production flow, thus minimizing wait time for subsequent operations. In designing the queuing tower we ran simulations to determine the optimal size and capacity to ensure a smooth workflow. Thus, each worker had the right piece at the right time to keep productivity efficient and well managed

15. Case Study: Transportation Our client was a southeastern manufacturer of injection molded parts for the automobile industry. After acquiring a competitor our client found itself with expanded production capacity, but that it was wasting resources by transporting parts back and forth between the two plants for successive finishing operations. In addition to the costs of fuel and truck maintenance, each transfer required time and labor to package, inventory and receive parts. This excessive focus on internal logistics had the potential to distract the client from improving the service and quality it could deliver to its customers, and thus endangered its competitive advantage. We worked closely with our client to design and implement a plan for combining the two plants into one. By applying principles of efficient work cell design we helped our client improve productivity, reduce costs, eliminate most of the work in progress inventory, and accelerate the manufacturing process to produce a better product in less time at a lower cost. By eliminating the unnecessary transport of parts between two plants our client saved one to two weeks in producing each batch of parts

16. Case Study: Processing Our client was a Midwest manufacturer of stepper motors (used for computer controlled operation such as for printers or plotters). Though the manufacturer had a good basic design concept, their product required excessive time and skill in assembly due to its complexity. We applied our skill and experience in design for manufacture and assembly (DFMA) to the challenge of making our client’s product better while reducing the time and expense needed to make it. By eliminating parts not adding value to the end user and reducing the machining operations we helped our client streamline manufacture, reducing twelve assembly steps to two. The redesigned motor thus cost significantly less plus it was more durable and reliable

17. Step 7 SYSTEMS PERFECTION – Attainable. It requires management commitment and awareness and training

18. “Lean is basically all about getting the right things, to the right place, at the right time, in the right quantity while minimizing waste and being flexible and open to change.”