The Seven Wastes Gemba Academy（七个废物玄叶光一郎学院）.pdf

® M A G A Z I N E From the September/October 2009 Issue ■ Volume 5, Number 5 SKILL BUILDER The Seven Wastes BY RON PEREIRA This copyrighted e-print from iSixSigma Magazine is for use on the LSS Academy blog. It may not be republished, electronically or physically reproduced, changed, posted to a website or otherwise distributed without written permission. For reprint permissions, please contact Lisa Abelson at 516-379-7097 or labelson@. SKILL BUILDER The Seven Wastes Be Lean by identifying non-value-added activities BY RON PEREIRA ne thing is certain: Waste is all around – at work, at Ohome and everywhere in between. As applied to busi- Introducing Tim Woods ness, waste, or muda in Japanese, is any activity that adds no Remembering the seven (or eight) wastes is not an easy real value to the product or service being created or delivered. task. Ask experienced Lean practitioners to rattle them The diligent ferreting out and elimination of waste in off and many will start strong and then struggle to come how work is performed is a fundamental tenet of Lean, the up with the last few. operational excellence strategy that was developed over Mnemonic devices are a good way to remember the many years and is widely used in business today. (See “A wastes. Several word combinations have been created Brief History of Lean.”) over the years to aid in jogging the memory. Lean batt