Using the Lean methodology, you can remove eight types of waste. These wastes are further explained below. You can see, Non-Utilized Talent is the eighth waste component identified in addition to the previous 7 wastes.
DOWNTIME
DOWNTIME is the acronym for the eight types of waste and stands for:
- Defects: The efforts involved inspecting for and fixing errors, mistakes through reworks.
- Overproduction: Producing more products or services that the customer needs or a downstream process can use.
- Waiting: Idle time created when material, information, people, or equipment is not ready. It includes high job set up time in manufacturing. Or excessive high data processing time in the service industry.
- Non-Utilized Talent: Not adequately leveraging peoples’ skills and creativity. Employee empowerment can counter this waste as advocated by Japanese quality pioneers.
- Transportation: Moving products, equipment, material, information, or people from one place to another, without any value addition to the final product or service.
- Inventory: Unnecessary or unwanted stocking or storage of information and/or material (Eg: WIP, WIQ – work in the queue).
- Motion: Unnecessary movement of people or machines that takes time and uses energy. It may cause fatigue to workmen due to unwanted movement of a body.
- Extra Processing: Process steps that do not add value to the product or service, including doing work beyond a customer’s specification.
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