Transport. Transporting does not do anything to transform a product or service. It adds cost, and every time you transport something, you increase the chance of damaging, losing or delaying it. This is also true for services. If I need to travel for two hours to see someone, this adds no value. Delivering the same service via the web or video conference reduces waste.

Inventory. Holding excess inventory (raw materials or finished goods) or work in progress is cash you have tied up on the shelf. Waste. In addition, inventory can become obsolete or deteriorate and need to be thrown out. Again, waste. Taking action to reduce stock holdings increases cashflow and reduces waste. Many modern business computer packages can assist you with this.

Motion. The more a person or machine moves, the risk of damage increases, safety risk increases and time is wasted in the production process. Imagine you need to go to a cupboard for items four times a day, and each time it takes five minutes. That is 20 minutes a day going to the cupboard, or 80 hours a year! Over two whole working weeks! Move the cupboard to be behind you and reduce the wasted time. When you employ people, this adds up fast!! Even screwing the nut on a bolt. It is only the last turn that tightens it. All the other turns are just motion. A waste of time.

It is the same in your home. Ever gone looking for something because it wasn’t put back in the right place? Do you put dishes in the sink instead of straight into the dishwasher? You are wasting time. This extra motion impacts your personal time.

Waiting. “I haven’t finished the job because I am waiting for my boss to make a decision”. In this case, the customer may not get their goods on time and you don’t get paid. If the goods are waiting for delivery, they could also get damaged. If you hear the word “waiting” in your workplace, this means you have a process which has waste built into it. You need to review this process and change it. Look at empowering your staff to make decisions, or changing the way processes flow.

Over-processing. If you do more work for the customer than they asked for, you are over-processing. The customer will not pay you for this extra work. If you feel you need to do extra work or over service to get a job or keep a customer, this is still not what the customer asked for. The extra expense is infact, marketing expense, not a cost of production.

Over-production. This is the worst waste of all. It drives all the others. If we grow or produce more than our customers wants, it will need to go into storage (inventory) and might need preservation (refrigeration). It will need to be moved multiple times. It sits around waiting. Ever seen 10-15 lettuces going off in the supermarket? The supermarket has over-produced to the requirements of the customers they service. It then sat in inventory. Now they will throw it out, and they have paid for it and paid to store it. They then order less from their supplier, but the supplier has already planted a crop to meet what they thought was the demand! Waste. Find out what your customer wants through formal customer feedback and deliver to it.