Spotting “waste” in your operations

There are seven well-known forms of waste in business.

Having worked with teams across a range of industries, I'd argue the eighth is often the most costly.

Operations experts talk about seven forms of waste: defects, waiting, transportation, overproduction, inventory, motion, and overprocessing.

Many practitioners add an eighth: unused employee creativity.

Every day, employees spot problems, bottlenecks, customer frustrations, and opportunities to improve. They know which reports nobody reads. Which processes cause the most issues. What's most likely to break.

The best organizations create routine systems for surfacing ideas from the people closest to the work.

And just as importantly, they close the loop.

Sometimes the answer is yes, let's run with that idea.

Sometimes the answer is no (and here's why not).

Either way, people know their ideas are valued.

This week, spend an hour "walking the floor" (whatever that means in your organization). No agenda. Just curiosity.

Ask people what's harder than it should be.

Then follow up.

You might be sitting on the most underutilized resource in your business.

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The 8 Forms of Waste

1. Defects
Rework, errors, and mistakes that require work to be done again.

2. Overproduction
Producing more work, sooner, or in greater quantity than is needed.

3. Waiting
Time lost waiting for people, information, materials, approvals, or equipment.

4. Transportation
Unnecessary movement of materials, information, or products.

5. Motion
Unnecessary movement by people, such as walking, searching, reaching, or switching between tasks.

6. Inventory
Materials sitting on shelves, or work building up faster than it can be completed.

7. Overprocessing
Doing more work than the customer values or the process requires.

8. Non-utilized talent
Not using people's skills, knowledge, creativity, or ideas effectively.