SEVEN WASTES IN A PRODUCTION LINE
Kaizen principles has have highlighted seven wastes in production line where comapnies looses
out time , money and productivity .Manufacturers have to eliminate these deadly wastes with
modification ,low cost automation and asking question whether customer would pay for the activity
involved at shop floors .
Here are the seven waste in any manufacturing unit
- Over-production
- Waiting
- Transporting
- Inappropriate Processing
- Unnecessary Inventory
- Unnecessary/Excess Motion
- Defects
OVER PRODUCTION
Normaly most of the manufacturers adopt these principles which works in push system rather than
pull system where production is plan in batch and items are produced in excess to be kept as
inventory .Reasons for Over production could be non- availability of machines , wrong sales forecast
stock out of certain raw material , high change over time .Over production results in waste of money
which could have been used for other useful activity. Stocks gets deterioted if kept for longer time .
Few Examples are
Producing more than the customer needs right now
Producing product to stock based on sales forecasts
Producing more to avoid set-ups
Batch process resulting in extra output
Forecasting
Long set-ups
Solution could be Pull system scheduling,Heijunka – level loading,Set-up reduction
WAITING
Now this could be a finished product waiting for dispatch , items waiting for the next phase on the
production line or raw material procured in advance for any reason .Thus blocking companies
money .Few Examples for waiting are
Idle time created when material, information, people, or equipment is not ready
Waiting for parts
Waiting for prints
Waiting for inspection
Waiting for machines
Waiting for information
Waiting for machine repair
Solution could be Takt time production,In-process gauging,Jidoka,Office Kaizen,TPM
TRANSPORTING
This is due to wrong layout of the production flow as objetcs are kept at distance which has to be
moved to production shop floor resulting in waste ( time , labour and cost ) . Care should be taken
such that the time spent on transporting items to or from warehouse is minimum.Better examples
are work stations in any automobile company where every thing is delivered at work station.Low
automation on loading , unloading and transporting can save good amount of money .
Few Examples
Movement of product that does not add value
Moving parts in and out of storage
Moving material from one workstation to another
Batch production
Solution could be Pull system,Value Stream organizations
INAPPROPRIATE PROCESSING
In appropriate processing comes into picture when manufacturers goes for advance hitech
machinery for normal job which could have done by conventional machine. These highly automated
machines if not handled carefully tends to over produce .This also includes items sourced from a
wrong supplier .
Few Examples
One-piece pull
Office Kaizen
3P
Lean Design
Solution One-piece pull,Office Kaizen,3P,Lean Design
UNNECESSARY INVENTORY
This happens due to faulty production planning,long lead times also contributes on inventory, long
set up time .,Overproduction of finished good ,WIP .This also happens due lack of proper ordering
procedure based on EOQ .
Solution Supplier development,One-piece flow lines,Set-up reduction,Internal kanban and External
kanban
UNECESSARY/EXCESS MOTION
Normaly it is about ergonomics the worker s posture which results in unecessary motion or few jobs
which are done repetitively without adding any value to the job.
Few examples
Searching for parts, tools, prints, etc.
Sorting through materials
Reaching for tools
Lifting boxes of parts
Workplace disorganization
Missing items
Poor workstation design
Unsafe work area
5S
Solution could be Point of Use Storage,Water Spider,One-piece flow,Workstation design
DEFECTS
Defects are shear waste and has to minimised to zero as these are cost to company defective
products cosumes raw material fuel labour .Cost is incurred on rework on these defectives .
Few Examples
Variation
Missing parts
Process failure
Mis-loaded part
Batch process
Inspect-in quality
Incapable machines
Solution GembaSigma,Pokayoke,One-piece pull,Built-in quality,3P,Jidoka
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