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Good day. This is Hormoz Mogarei, Get Kaizened Incorporated. I would like to talk to you
about seven plus one types of wastes or "muda" in Japanese.
In any kind of industry, if you look for the bottlenecks and obstacles, you will run into
these seven plus one types of non-value added things that are inherited in most businesses.
Waste number one is overproduction. Overproduction basically means to produce more than what
the customer is asking for, to produce more than what you can sell, more than what is
demanded or is required by marketplace.
The analogy for people who do overproduction is that now that we have the labor available,
the machines are running, the overhead is there and materials are available, we might
as well run and make parts, which is a big waste. The lean corporations always see this
as a waste. As a result, they never overproduce.
Muda number two is muda inventory. Inventory in accounting language is considered an asset.
In reality, it's muda. It's liability. It's waste. Accumulation of excess inventory or
warehouses requires a lot of additional expenses, space, personnel, overhead and burden and
sometimes your inventories are perishable. Then as a result, you don't save anything
by having additional inventory. You lose money by throwing away parts as well, by rejecting
and having more scrap. In addition, your money should bear interest, not only collect dust
in the warehouses.
Muda number three is waste of waiting, waiting of team members for the machine to finish
the job or more expensively, waiting of the machines for the team members to operate and
turn them on and turn them off. That particular waste could be applicable to the waiting that
we experience in different industries, the 20 extra minutes that you will have to wait
for your dentist to call you and the wait for the train or a plane or bus. Those are
all wastes in different places and different businesses.
Number four is the waste of conveyance. Number four is conveyance muda, the fact that you
will have to transport parts and materials from one location to the other location even
though it's necessary, even though it is something that you will have to do. Not everything can
be done in one place but you have to consider it as a waste so you can come up with ways
to reduce or eliminate that waste.
Number five is rework. When you don't produce parts correctly the first time, you will have
to rework it and repair the parts before you can give it to the end user. That is one of
the wastes that perhaps are hidden and as long as you make the numbers that you ship
to the customers, sometimes we don't pay attention to rework which is very costly in most organizations.
Number six is over-processing, doing something that the customer does not really care about,
paying more attention in the wrong areas. Majoring in minor things is over-processing.
It's not part of the specification. It's not something that the customer will look for
but nevertheless, you put more emphasis in those areas. That could be waste of labor,
time, material and efforts.
Number seven is motion. Waste of motions refers to anything more than the absolute necessary
movements that your team members have to do in order to perform the job. Waste of motion
is one of the mudas that are difficult to catch if you don't have the right glasses
to see the waste and Get Kaizened believes that there is the eighth waste in any industry
and that is the waste of underdeveloped team members.
If you don't regularly develop your team members to become more for the organization, to learn
more processes, to be more knowledgeable, to be more employable, then that's the biggest
waste that we have. Waste of human capital in an organization perhaps is the most expensive
one.
Pay attention to these seven plus one types of wastes. Examine the list and find out exactly
where you can improve in your organization. Looking forward to seeing you. Good-bye now.