Waste Identification

What is waste identification?

There are eight different types of waste that could exist in a process. These are the things that frustrate us at work. For each step in your process ask, “Does this step contain the potential to include waste?”. You can remember the different types of waste with the acronym DOWNTIME:

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Examples include

Defects - Every time you start over, fix a mistake, or your customer messes up.

Overproduction – Making or ordering too much of something, too many reports, extra copies of an application that are obsolete.

Waiting - Waiting for a clients or supervisor's signature or depending on others to complete flow.

Non-Utilized Talent - Underuse of people’s talents or skill; people often know what is wrong with their colleagues, but a good team knows each other's talents.

Transportation - Moving things, actual transportation, or multiple handoffs. Think about needlessly going to another location when you could talk over the phone or even have someone send something in by mail or email.

Inequity – Every time discrimination surfaces in steps of a process. Think about airport screenings, job advertisements, and ‘soft chat time’ at the start of interviews.

Motion - Unnecessary human movement. Think about how small it seems to walk to the printer or crouch to grab a file, and yet it makes a huge difference when you don't have to bend over to pick something up.

Extra-Processing – Creating something at a higher level of detail or quality than is valued by the customer. This could include printing documents in color when the color does not add value. It is good to question here, is this required by law? The Employee Retirement Plan used to mail a physical letter every time they had money deposited into their account until they questioned the statute.

What is waste identification?

Examples include

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