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The “Eight Wastes”: What Are They?

Waste, (known as “Muda” in Japanese) was traditionally a list of the seven most common form of wasteful steps, processes and blockages in an organisation.  They have evolved over the years to the “Eight Wastes” below.  They are a great standard to refer to during your Lean transformation and an easy way to showcase where problems might be occurring.

Most people will be able to identify with two or three of these in their business, and often you will be able to note five or more.

The Eight Wastes are best remembered as “DOWNTIME”, as you can see below:

1. Defects:      Mistakes that require rectification (rework; or worse, scrap).
2. Over Production:      Producing goods or services that do not meet the specific eeds of customers.
3. Waiting:      Groups of people in downstream processes waiting for the completion of upstream work.
4. Non-use of Talent:      Failure to fully utilize the time and talents of people.
5. Transport:      Unnecessary transport of material and sub-assemblies.
6. Inventory:      Production of inventory that no one wants.
7. Motion:      Unnecessary movement by employees active in the production process.
8. Excessive Processing:      Processing steps that are not needed.

It is good practice to call these out during your Kaizen meeting or event and note them on your Value Stream Map, and do a root cause analysis on why they are needed or why they are occurring.

Additional to the Wastes, and just as important, are “Muri” (OverBurden) or staff and “Mura” (Unevenness) in a process that forms peaks and troughs in a workload.

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