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The aim of Lean Manufacturing is the elimination of waste in every area of production including customer
relations, product design, supplier networks, and factory management. Its goal is to incorporate less human effort,
less inventory, less time to develop products, and less space to become highly responsive to customer demand while
producing top quality products in the most efficient and economical manner possible. Essentially, a "waste" is
anything that the customer is not willing to pay for.
Typically the seven types of waste considered in a Lean manufacturing system include:
1. Transportation: does not add any value to the product. Instead of improving the transportation, it should be
minimized or eliminated (e.g. forming cells).
2. Inventory or Work in Process (WIP): is material between operations due to large lot production or processes with
long cycle times.
3. Motion: of the workers, machines, and transport (e.g. due to the inappropriate location of tools and parts) is
waste. Instead of automating wasted motion, the operation itself should be improved.
4. Waiting: for a machine to process should be eliminated. The principle is to maximise the utilisation/efficiency
of the worker instead of maximising the utilisation of the machines.
5. Overproduction: to produce more than demanded or produce it before it is needed.
It is visible as storage of material. It is the result of producing to speculative demand. Overproduction
means making more than is required by the next process, making earlier than is required by the next process, or
making faster than is required by the next process.
6. Over-Processing waste: should be minimised by asking why a specific processing step is needed and why a specific
product is produced. All unnecessary processing steps should be eliminated.
7. Defective products: is pure waste. Prevent the occurrence of defects instead of finding and repairing defects.
Nearly every waste in the production process can fit into at least one of these categories. The focus is on making
the entire process flow, not the improvement of one or more individual operations.
Contact Us
For more information on our Lean training and consultancy services, please contact us at:
Email:
Tel: (65) 68484109
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