Waste
Recognise the eight wastes on your own line, spot them during shop-floor observation with a simple grid, and turn each observation into a measurable action.
This course is aimed at team leaders, methods technicians, continuous improvement facilitators and shop-floor managers who want to know where to start a Lean approach. It starts from one observation: a large share of the time spent on a line does not transform the product, and nobody sees it because everyone has got used to it.
By the end, you will be able to distinguish a value-added operation from waste, name the eight families of Muda and give an example of each taken from your line, run a thirty-minute workstation observation with a recording grid, and choose the first waste to tackle with a quantified success criterion. You leave with a ready-to-use observation grid and a method you can repeat every week.
What you will be able to do
- Distinguish, for a given operation, value added for the customer, necessary non-value added and pure waste.
- Name the eight wastes (Muda) and give a concrete example of each observed on your own line.
- Explain why overproduction is tackled first: it feeds and masks the other wastes.
- Run a thirty-minute workstation observation with an eight-wastes grid, without judging the operator.
- Convert an observation into an action: targeted waste, baseline measurement, quantified target at two weeks.
The path
- What the customer pays for, and the rest 4 min
- Overproduction, stock, waiting, transport 5 min
- Motion, unnecessary processing, non-quality, skills 5 min
- Observing a station for thirty minutes 5 min
- Choosing a waste and measuring it 5 min
Prerequisites
No Lean prerequisites. Working in production or in direct proximity to a line. Having access to a workstation for the observation exercise.
The closing quiz
The topic ends with a 7-question quiz, and a certificate is issued on success.