Types of Waste/Downtime

Question 1

What is “Defect Waste”?

Answer 1

Defect Waste occurs due to scrap, rework, customer returns, and controlling non-conforming material. This waste type results from errors or defects that require correction, leading to inefficiencies.

Question 2

What is “Overproduction Waste”?

Answer 2

Overproduction Waste happens when a process produces more output than what is needed by downstream processes or external customers. This is often seen in push production systems and leads to excessive inventory and in-process bottlenecks.

Question 3

What is “Waiting Waste”?

Answer 3

Waiting Waste occurs when parts of the process or personnel are idle, waiting for tools, parts, instructions, raw materials, information, or machine readiness. This results in wasted labor and resources, as productive time is lost.

Question 4

What is “Not Utilizing Human Talent”?

Answer 4

The waste of Not Utilizing Human Talent occurs when individuals are assigned to the wrong tasks, when untrained or inadequately trained employees are ill-prepared to perform tasks, and when employees are not engaged in continuous improvement initiatives.

Question 5

What is “Transportation Waste”?

Answer 5

Transportation waste occurs when excessive amounts of time are needed to move parts, assemblies, or finished goods between stations. During this transportation, no value-add is taking place, but cycle time is increasing.

Question 6

What is “Inventory Waste”?

Answer 6

Inventory waste occurs when the organization has extra materials or more finished products in storage than what is needed to fulfill demand.

Question 7

What is “Motion Waste”?

Answer 7

Motion waste occurs when people in the process have to move around too much to perform their tasks. During this motion, they are typically not adding value, but rather going to and from process areas to move something or get something.

Question 8

What is “Extra Processing” waste?

Answer 8

Extra processing waste occurs when employees are doing tasks that add no value to the finished product. Examples include collecting data that is not of any value, doing unnecessary work on a part or assembly, or cleaning parts that could be prevented.

Question 9

What are the benefits of setup and cycle-time reduction?

Answer 9

Overall shorter process times, which can:
• save time, money, and other organizational resources
• identify and eliminate rework
• free valuable resources for other processes
• potentially generate additional revenue

Question 10

What is “setup” in a process?

Answer 10

Setup is the time it takes to change a process from one mode to a new mode to provide the next service or to produce a different product. During setup, the process is paused and nothing of value is being produced, thereby increasing cycle time.

Question 11

What is “setup and cycle time reduction”?

Answer 11

The act of speeding up the time it takes a process to complete from beginning to end is called setup and cycle time reduction.

Question 12

What are some lean tools designed to reduce or eliminate waste?

Answer 12

• Set-up and cycle-time reduction
• Pull systems (kanban)
• Continuous improvement (kaizen)
• Just-in-time (JIT)
• 5S
• Value stream mapping
• Error-proofing (poka-yoke)
• Setup time is the period required to prepare a process to complete a function.
• Cycle time is the amount of time it takes to process or complete a function.
• CTR stands for Cycle Time Reduction, which involves critically analyzing a business’s processes.