Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt – The 8 types of muda examples and general solutions Part 3

6. The Waste of waiting

Welcome back everyone. By now you have a general understanding of waste and have probably began to see and identify many examples of the eight types of muda. In order for us to understand each form of waste at a more advanced level, we are going to look in detail at each of the letters in Mr. Tim woods name. In this lecture we will look at the waste of waiting. By the end of this lecture you will know what it means to wait and or be in Q. Then we will share some common examples of the waste of waiting.

And finally we will leave you with a few ideas for how you can begin to reduce the waste of waiting. Formally defined, the waste of waiting refers to any idle activity which does not relate to a needed customer demand. It is important to remember that a customer can be both internal and external of an organization. For example, a coworker may be waiting for information in order to complete an activity. A worker may be waiting for material in order to start their job.

Or a mechanic might be waiting on tools to do the work needed properly. When we look at these three examples of waiting, each of the people waiting is a customer of some type. An internal customer is typically still a member of the same organization as you, but resides somewhere downstream from where you are in the value stream. External customers, on the other hand, are generally external of the organization. Both types of customers have no doubt experienced the waste of waiting. But why in fact does waiting occur is the question.

There are many reasons that customers, suppliers and people throughout the value stream are forced to wait. Some of the more common reasons can be linked to long processes and set up or changeover times, which, as you can see, results in machine downtime and people waiting. Another very common reason employees experience excessive waiting is due to unbalanced flow in processes and poor synchronization of each of the process steps. Layouts, such as the functional ones we have mentioned in other lectures often contribute to long cue points too.

As you may have guessed, this is because more often than not, materials or information are placed in an in or an outbox or another area and then wait for others to come and move the items. In the office or service environment, waiting can often be the result of incomplete documentation or approval queues that sit for a long time until somebody can say that what you have already reviewed is okay. As an aside, knowingly placing items or activities in queue is like knowingly asking someone to wait somewhere on the value stream.

This is one reason why one of the main contributors to the waste of waiting is the design process. Processes are often designed with waste built right into them. There are quite a few very effective methods of mitigating and or dealing with excessive waiting and organization, it is always important to first identify where in the value stream weight points may fall at. The most effective way to make the waste of waiting visual is to value stream map the process out. When you do this, you can identify weight points and plan for their mitigation.

Mapping a process will help make the unseen visible rather than living. The process in repetition day in and day out, and you’ll be able to take a closer look at bottlenecks and constraints that are often hidden within the flow of materials or information. After identifying where the waiting occurs, you can next attempt to understand why the waiting is happening. One of the more common reasons that cue points build up is due to organizations building to a forecast or a predetermined schedule. This is, as we have mentioned before, also known as a push system. Working towards a more pullorientated environment creates a sense of awareness as to what is actually needed, when it’s needed, and how many are needed. In other words, products are created just in time based on real customer demand. It is important to note that once you clearly understand what the root cause of the waiting is, you can then begin to establish solutions and measurements to ensure that the waiting does not occur again. One measurement that is a helpful gauge of the flow of materials is tack time.

TAC time is the rate at which products or services need to be fulfilled to keep up with customer demand. Many times the establishment of attack time helps us understand the rate at which we need to work in order to keep up with our customers requirements. A few other common methods of reducing the waste of waiting is to define and establish standard work procedures and processes that allow workers to make decisions when things go wrong. Finally, taking a deep look at the flow of your organization may help you to remove bottlenecks and move towards a more efficient flow. Looking at flow can also help you to synchronize processes that may be interdependent of one another. Okay, now that you’re an expert on the waste of waiting, before we go, let’s take a look at your homework. You will need to complete this homework assignment before moving on to the next lecture. As you can see here, we have two activities for you to perform.

7. The deadly waste of Overproduction, part 1

Welcome back, everyone. By now you probably have a general understanding of waste and most likely have begun to see and identify the many examples of the eight types of muda. In order to understand each form of waste at a more advanced level, we are now going to look in detail at each of the letters in Mr. Tim Wood’s name in this lecture lecture we will look at the waste of overproduction. By the end of this lecture, you will know why overproduction is the deadliest of all the eight forms of waste, what some of the contributing factors of overproduction are. And finally, we will leave you with a few ideas for how you can begin reducing the waste of overproduction. Okay, well, let’s first remind ourselves of the definition of overproduction. Formally defined, overproduction is producing anything either earlier than needed or in excess of the needed demand. The waste of overproduction is considered to be the most dangerous of all the waste, and you will often hear it referred to as the deadliest form of waste there is. The reason overproduction is such a deadly form of waste is because it magnifies all other types of waste as a result of its presence. Let’s take inventory for example. When you make more parts than you need, you end up with more inventory.

How about waiting? Well, as you might have guessed, when you make too many parts, not only are you not creating value, but other customers are waiting while you make parts that most likely have no demand associated with them. Another very common misconception is that if we keep machines running or produce a little extra now rather than later, we can take advantage of economies of scale. While buying in batches may in fact give you price breaks, it will actually cost you much more, because there is no guarantee that there will ever be a clear demand attached to the product, which in turn exhausts profit margins and ultimately drains any remaining return on investment. While this deadly form of waste does in fact place extreme strain on capital in one’s organization, it often places a much heavier burden on workers trying to keep up with the extra products and services. This happens because, as we noted in the definition earlier, with products and information and or services being supplied in excess amount or being supplied earlier than the actual needed demand, which, as we all know, places workers in an anxious hurry up and finish firefighting mentality.

So why in fact, does overproduction occur? One of the most obvious reasons overproduction occurs is because oftentimes there is no clear target or demand rate established. This is the result of building to a forecasted plan rather than to the actual customer needs. Another very common reason overproduction occurs is to hide poor yield rates and excessive defects. Let’s imagine for just a second that workers are aware they yield one bad unit out of every four units. So rather than fix the root cause, they decide to produce five parts to make up for the one they think they are going to lose. Not only does this hide the real problem of what is causing the part to come off the line bad, but it’s overproduction. The last reason we will discuss here today is that overproduction occurs as a result of poor communications.

Many times the demand or actual sales numbers are unknown to everyone except the sales agent. When unclear or skewed numbers are passed through the value stream, it can result in what is known as the bullwhip effect, while leaving everyone wondering who actually needs what, how many and when do they need it? Some examples of the waste of overproduction are making too many components without a clear demand, buying items well in advance of knowing what your customers actual needs are, and delivering products and services earlier than required.

Additionally, duplication of activities. And let’s not forget that when we send information too early or with more than what is really needed, this is in fact information overproduction and that is waste. Well, given those many examples of waste of overproduction, let’s take a few minutes to pause the video while you write down some forms of overproduction that occur on a daily basis in your life. This could be anything from ordering or making too much food for your family, printing too many papers, or even the more common lengthy email. Go ahead and get started. I’ll be right here waiting when you get back.

8. The deadly waste of Overproduction, part 2

Okay, now, welcome back. I hope that you found quite a few types of overproduction in your organization and you can begin to remove them right away. Now, that brings us to the topic of solutions. Overproduction is often a very complex strategic solution, but really it is the one that yields tons and tons of returns. The first and very important concept that can assist in controlling and mitigating overproduction is producing to tack time.

This is an important concept because we know that in order to produce to tack time, we produce only based on the customer demand. Additionally, it supports the notion that there is a proper rate of production that the customer wants to buy at, and producing quicker than that will yield no benefits at all. Next, when there is a breakdown in communication, we need to figure out how it broke down, why it broke down, and fix it. Some suggestions for coordinating communication are daily huddles to align actions with needs, integrating ERP and MRP to produce accurate information that can be relied on. Most people can benefit from what is known as a data cleansing. And finally, although not strictly focused on lean, sales and operations planning can support accurate levels of production.

Sales and operations planning’s overall mission is to balance supply and demand at an aggregate level and to align operational and financial planning. The sales and operations planning process is a series of meetings which attempts to align demand and production plans. It does this through consensus, which means the plan that comes out of SNP is the plan you build to the meetings. Follow a general format outlined by Wallace Install in the book operations Planning the how to Handbook. They are data gathering, demand planning, supply planning, pre meeting, and executive meeting.

Another possible solution that can support producing what is needed when it is needed, is integrating the concept of hey junka into your scheduling practices. Hey junka supports the leveling of production on the floor and seeks to match the true demand to the capacity of the value stream. This is in turn tells us to produce only what we need. In other words, customer demand. Now, we would like to mention before wrapping up this overview of the waste of overproduction that communicating, coordinating and breaking down silos will help to match supply with demand. Well, that concludes our detailed view of this form of waste. So until next time, keep on improving and we will keep on giving you solutions that ignite your power.