What is Waste?

Any activity that consumes resources but creates no value for the customer. Most activities are waste (muda). There are two types of waste: type 1 and type 2. Type 1 muda creates no value but is unavoidable in a given situation. An example would be inspecting welds to ensure quality.

Type 2 muda creates no value and can be eliminated immediately. An example would be a process with disconnected steps that could quickly be reconfigured into a cell, in which certain movements and inventories would no longer be needed.

In most value streams, the activities that actually create value for the customer are a small fraction of the total. Eliminating the large amount of waste is the greatest potential source of improvement in corporate performance and customer service.

This concept becomes even more relevant when we see how companies, in success stories, identify and eliminate waste. This will always be one of the focal points of the discussions and presentations by the dozens of companies that describe their journeys in detail at the Lean Summits.

Related article: "Where is the waste in healthcare?" - Author: Flávio Battaglia - Lean Institute Brasil. Read here the full article.

"The essence of lean thinking is the continuous elimination of unnecessary activities, the wastes, that permeate practically every type of process: care delivery, support and administrative. If we are able to eliminate unnecessary effort, there will be more time and resources available for the things that really matter. Eliminating waste means being able to stop doing what is irrelevant, freeing up capacity to improve what really counts: patient safety and quality of care.

The first challenge is to see. Everything that does not create value for the customer is waste. With this simple definition, we can draw a reasonably clear dividing line to distinguish the steps that create value from those that do not. We can then begin to exercise our perception and look for alternatives to the real problems that are leading to waste."