7 WASTES

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DMAIC APPLICATION MEASURE PHASE
Accuracy / Bias MEASUREMENT Standard Operating Procedures
Resolution / Linearity / Control SYSTEM Measurement Error Quantified
Gage R&R ANALYSIS MSA Validated and Approved

Customer Requirements (VOC) Data Collected per Sampling Plan

O
I Data Collection Plan Process Control Review U
N OEE Process Capability (VOP) T
P Yield Calculations BASELINE Value Stream Map P
U MEASUREMENTS
Descriptive Statistics Refined Project Goals U
T
SPC Charting T
S Refined Financial Estimation
S

Pareto Diagram
Narrowed down PIVs
Fishbone Diagram
Detailed Process Map
Correlation Matrix IDENTIFICATION
OF PIVs Future State (Ideal) Map
FMEA
(root causes xs) Wastes Identified
Brainstorming
RPNs are Known
Spaghetti Diagram
Remove Uncontrollable Inputs
7 Wastes
5-WHY

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 The Seven Wastes
1.Defects
2.Overproduction
3.Excess Transportation
4.Waiting
5.Inventory
6.Excess Motion
7.Excess Processing

Use the acronym DOTWIMP as a mnemonic technique

There is a #8 that is occasionally taught and it is a source of

opportunity in front offices to the factory floor. We will discuss
this later.
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 The Seven Wastes
Purpose:
A primary objective within Lean Manufacturing and DMAIC
projects is to identify waste and eliminate it. This module intends
to teach people to see wastes that are more obvious and seek
out the hidden factory wastes.
These wastes can contribute to degradation in 5S and increase
safety risks among lost profits and possibly revenue and working
capital.

Another form of waste that can be incorporated into this exercise

is the waste and underutilization of human resources and talent.
Misalignment of employee time impedes getting the best results.
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 The Seven Wastes
Waste occurs in very obvious forms to others that are not
obvious. A team is expected to evaluate each form of waste as
they develop process maps and begin to look for improvements.
Waste can occur within:
1. Services
2. Products
3. Transactional processes

Waste can occur within flows of:

4. People
5. Information
6. Products

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 The Seven Wastes
1) OVERPRODUCTION

The reason this one is discussed first in detail, is because it is

the riskiest (and often the most costly) form of waste, since the
other waste also happen within it. Overproduction can have
defects, create more transportation, waiting, etc.

This means building an excess quantity of units or more than the

customer needs or is willing to pay for. This could be due to long
set-up times, very long lead times, and difficulties known at
start-up. This is often done to cover an underlying problem.

In terms of a service, this is the same as doing more than is

required or that the customer is willing to pay for. s to control.
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 The Seven Wastes
2) DEFECTS
For very obvious reasons, making the product right the first time
is ideal and any product that is defective, due to one or more
defects, is an opportunity to reduce costs and lead time.
Defects are products or services that do not meet the customer
specification. Defects always require some degree of additional
attention, whether it they are tracked, scrapped, reworked, or
repaired. These options may result in more waste or others of the
seven wastes.
Remember to consider all the paperwork, confusion, and delays
that might have been associated with the scrap or rework.to
control. Handling defects can create more transportation, 7
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 The Seven Wastes
3) EXCESS TRANSPORTATION
Manually moving stock to a staging area and dropping off
material and picking it back up to deliver to machine. The goal is
to minimize the transportation and people involved in moving
material.

Transportation waste should be evaluated in the office and

manufacturing floor. Sometimes it is electronic waste in the
corporate environment. Review transportation waste of any
materials (direct or indirect).

Transportation wastes add costs, lead time, and risk of getting

damaged or misplaced. 8
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 The Seven Wastes
4) WAITING
Downtime waiting for parts, components, raw materials,
approvals, the previous operation down in a cell, and paperwork.

A machine could be waiting for next job, because the current job
is being overproduced. It could be the part is waiting for
something or the people involved are waiting.

Once again, waiting can be a waste that occurs in a transaction

too, such as waiting for a requisition to be approved, or a
purchase order, or a project that requires a sequence of
approvals.
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 The Seven Wastes
5) INVENTORY
Not all inventory is "bad" inventory. A properly sized Kanban or
plan for each unit will dictate the appropriate amounts of
inventory at each phase of a value stream. Moreover, the Kanban
mins and max levels should be dynamic and adjust as conditions
change. It should be capable of looking forward for potential
outliers and using historical performance. Of course, if a business
model exist where all inventory is prepaid by customer and
none is tied up as working capital, then that is an ideal state.
Most often, this isnt possible.
Parts on hand that customer has not purchased yet due to cycle
time and lead time. Buffer stock used to offset variation in
demand and production. Excess inventory ties up cash, creates10
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 The Seven Wastes
6) MOTION
Excess motion to adjust a machine, frame a house, make a
sandwich, that could be eliminated by rearranging layout, tools,
and personnel. The motion may cause unnecessary fatigue and
long term injury. Proper ergonomics should be applied when
making adjustment to motion studies.

Only have the necessary tools, materials, paperwork at the

operator workstation. The less an item is needed, the further
away it should be. A term commonly used isPOU - Point Of
Use. Use shadowboards and other ideas to keep most frequent
needed items at the operator point of use.
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 The Seven Wastes
7) EXCESS PROCESSING
This is different than the waste of Overproduction. This includes waste such
as over polishing parts, excessing painting, heating parts too long or too
high of temperature, excessive washing, redundant paperwork, excessive
data collection, tumbling, turning, drying parts longer than necessary.

Sometimes this opportunity is less obvious. Your team may find that is can
reduce the production of a part from multiple machines to one machine,
such as putting two components on at the same time, or redesigning tooling
to create more complex stamping in one cycle.

The lack of integrated systems, lack of creative and innovative

spreadsheets, conditional formatting, validation, filtering, can all lead to
over-processing when performing data entry or other clerical and office jobs.
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 The Seven Wastes
Use the 7-Wastes thought process when making improvements
to the process map to help achieve the ideal state. Each of them
are rather obvious when studied individually however it is easier
said than done which refers to actually "seeing" the waste,
identifying it, and eliminating it (or mitigate).

Before the GEMBA walk, creating the process map, or a value

stream map, teach the team members about the seven wastes.
Teach them to see the waste and moreover, dig deeper to find
the hidden factory wastes.

More effective training will include creative examples in their

workplace that are not as obvious. Often, this training comes
across as common sense but if you can surprise them with13
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 The Seven Wastes
Sometimes the waste is less obvious, found by accident, or may
seem out of scope. The team may be following a product during
a value stream mapping exercise and notice potential
improvements such as:
Lighting that can be converted to more efficient LEDs,
A washer is spraying water when there are not any parts in it,
A dryer is blowing hot air when there are not any parts in it,
Warm air from machines, furnaces, or air compressors is being vented
outside when it could possibly be reclaimed and used to heat a building
or working space,
Gravity that isnt being utilized as a free energy source when it could be
to help the flow of parts or components.
Tools and Dies that arent completely used or that can be reworked
Air compressor and dryer piping inefficiencies
Perhaps some of these are not xs (inputs) that contribute directly to solving .the
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 The Seven Wastes REFERENCE GUIDE
1.Defects
2.Overproduction (often the most severe)
3.Excess Transportation
4.Waiting
5.Inventory
6.Excess Motion
7.Excess Processing

Use the acronym DOTWIMP as a mnemonic technique

8. Underutilization and misalignment of human resources time

and talent.
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