7+1 wastes: How to spot waste and get rid of it

When referring to waste people immediately think of either material waste or garbage. But there exists another kind of waste. The kind that wastes our time. And those kind of wastes are the ones that we hunt as Lean practitioners. The so called 7+1 wastes.

But before we go into the wastes we need to discuss the term value add.

What that means is what really adds value to the customer. We look at all activities with the eyes of the customer. Simply asking this question: would the customer (or you yourself be willing to pay for the company performing that activity? If yes the activity adds value and if not, that activity is said to be non value adding.

There is another way to assess if the activity is value adding or not. Ask if the activity transforms the product or moves the product closer to the customer? If not it is non value adding.

But the story doesn’t end here.

We also have activities that doesn’t add value but that we can’t get rid off. Those are known as non value add but necessary, that would be for instance required quality controls, legislative requirements etc. These are necessary right now but that doesn’t mean we should accept them at all costs. They are non value add and if the requirements changes and the activity no longer is needed it should be eliminated.

7+1 wastes

According to the godfather of Toyota Production System (sometimes called Lean) Taichii Ohno there exists seven types of wastes. Those are:  

Transportation: All activity where we are transporting goods, materials, documents etc. but not transforming it or getting the final product closer to the customer

Inventory: Where goods, materials, WIP is just lying around not moving closer to the customer, included obsolete items

Movement: When we are moving around to fix things, find things, searching for information. All movement that doesn’t add value to the product

Waiting: All waiting activities, waiting for colleagues, suppliers, leaders, subordinates and customers. This could be waiting for documents, materials, information, responses etc.

Overproduction: this is considered one of the worse wastes. When you produce too much, you need to transport it, put it into the stock, administer it and even count it. If we produced exactly what the customer had ordered it would probably not even be in the factory for long.

Over processing: this is all the activities where we do more than the customer requires. This could be measuring one more time just to be sure, this could be two employees controlling each others work, when we polish an item one more time just because .., when we wash the hopper one more time etc.

Defects: when we allow our processes to create bad quality or that is our employees to create bad quality. That means all activities that creates rework or scrapping defective parts

Those are the 7 (sometimes called deadly) wastes.

But we are missing one last one and that is the lack of using our employees creativity and innovation. It is a different kind of waste since it is not something we want to eliminate but instead increase. For that reason I always call it the +1 waste. So all in all there are 7+1 wastes. 

How to spot waste

So now that we know what waste is..

How do we spot it?

Well one very known way of forcing people to look for waste is using the famous Ohno circle.

Story has it that the Taiichi Ohno would take his student to the Gemba (the place where value is created) and order him to stand in a certain place. Then he would pull out a piece of chalk and draw a circle around the person on the floor. Then he would order him to stand in that circle for as long as it would take him to write down for instance 20 improvement suggestions.

Let this story true or false… we shall grasp something useful from it.

But what was really the goal with this exercise?

Well of course it was great with improvements. But more important was that the student (who could be the next CEO or the like) would spend time and energy understanding the process and understanding the daily challenges that the employee doing the work faced.

In this way Ohno’s students would put emphasis on going to the Gemba to understand the facts and the situation as it is. Not as some computer tells us it is (also known as Genchi genbutsu – the actual facts at the actual place).

So does that mean that you should draw circles around yourself? Well not necessarily but I would advice that you go to the gemba select a spot where you are not disturbing and then just stand watching. Not to look but to understand. When you really understand the process and the pains that the operator experiences then you can create value by improving that process together with the operator. Getting the inputs and ideas from the operator and creating the solution together. Try creating solutions that makes the work easier, better, faster and cheaper. And follow the priority in that order: always try to make the work easier for the operator to do. Create a better day for the employee.

First example on how to apply the 7+1 wastes

An example on where the 7+1 wastes was analyzing the process of fixing pot holes (the holes that you sometimes feel on the road when driving over it with your car). The process was that in the morning the teams would get their work orders and approval notes. They would then go out and fix the holes in a sequence that they themselves found fit. After the work the team leader had to sign the order notes.

The problem was that the orders were not always close to each other and that the team thought they would save time doing their route, the team leader often lost or misplaced his order notes, a lot of time was spend in the morning waiting for all teams to get their orders and the final words from the leader. After mapping the process as it was and looking at it from a customers perspective a lot of waste was found.

So a new process was drawn as the team would like it and together with the support of internet technology a new web based service was devised. The new process is that in the morning the team get a tablet. They then go out to their vans and open up the tablet. They then follow the route outlaid by the service which is supported by google maps. That means that any queues or delays are registered and a new route is calculated. If the team finishes before time there is a pool of tasks and orders that they can then draw upon. When the team finishes for the day the team leader signs the process off digitally.

Second example on how to apply the 7+1 wastes

Another different example on how the 7+1 wastes can be used is in freeing up time in the daily work of a production leader. For instance following the day of a leader it was plain to see that the leader was doing a lot of work that was not creating value. There was a lot of administrative work and even work that normally would reside with the warehouse personnel. Several times during the day the leader would move crates with components from one line to another. Not really far but not really close either.

The solution to remove this waste of transport was to create a water spider stop (a warehouse employee taking rounds to get or deliver things) and introduce kanbans (sign that things are ready to go to another place) and then it was part of the water spider route. That together with removing and simplifying administrative tasks freed up 30% of the production leaders time. That time could now be used to create value adding work according to the job profile.

These were some examples of more uncommon ways to use the 7+1 wastes. This shows that you can use it in any setting. You just have to see the waste and then come up with ideas to remove it.

ECRS – a way to remove waste

A way to remove waste is using the ECRS methodology. This way of challenging an exisisting process is very useable. ECRS stands for:

Eliminate: The first question that you should ask yourself is: “can I eliminate this process or activity?” You have to ask yourself is it really necessary? If not how can I eliminate it?

Combine: If you can not eliminate the process or activity can you combine it with another? That means can I combine the process before or after with the process in question? What would be the benefit of combining them?

Rearrange: If you can not eliminate the process or combine it with the one before or after then you can investigate if you can rearrange processes or activities. Is it possible to reaggrange the sequence of processes? Can you move around activities in another sequence that will make it more logical, easier or perhaps more efficient?

Simplify: If you can not eliminate, combine or rearrange processes or activities then you need to see how you can simplify it. How can I make this process or activity more simple and easier to understand and do? Think in only the processes or activities that are necessary and investigate how you can make them simple.

This article has shown how you can spot waste, make processes more lean removing the waste and from a customers perspective increasing the value adding part. A way to attack the process is through the methodology ECRS. I hope this article has given you some ideas on spotting and removing waste and shown that you can use these lenses in any setting.

About the Author

Erik T Hansen is a B.Sc.Eng production (hons) and holds a diploma in Supply Chain Management. He has been working in the field of Lean and Continuous Improvement some 20+ years. He has been working in a number of CI positions in a variety of industries. His main areas of interest are Lean leadership, Lean thinking and Lean manufacturing.