Transport

Unnecessary movement of products, people, tools and materials results in unnecessary transport and labour costs. Eliminating unnecessary movement can reduce the environmental footprint of a product and the physical wear and tear on employees.

Examples of these types of waste are excessive handling of trucks or forklifts.

Unnecessary movements

These are those made not by goods but by people, because these are also wastes to be taken into account.

Unnecessary movements

Walking, lifting, reaching, bending, stretching and moving: tasks that require excessive movement should be rethought to improve the work of staff and increase health and safety levels. The best place to start is to look at the working environment of production employees: is it optimised to reduce steps or improve ergonomics for workers?

Examples of this type of waste are:

Too much walking space for pallet repair staff to sort or stack pallets;

The improper arrangement of hand nailing stations;

Tools are improperly placed that add unnecessary steps;

Improper layout of the equipment causes wasted movement by forklift operators.

Waiting times

Waiting times between the various stages of a process are known as bottlenecks. Waiting time between processes is usually due to misalignments in production stations or machinery speeds.

Potential solutions include redesigning processes to ensure a continuous flow or cross-training workers so that they know how the various aspects of the process interact.

Examples of this type of waste are:

Having to wait for materials to arrive (e.g. having to wait for timber with the right dimensions).

Machinery running at different speeds due to bottlenecks or poor timber design or sorting.

Workers waiting for instructions resulting from improper order communication.

Equipment with insufficient capacity.

Overproduction

This is the case when production is excessive or ahead of schedule.

Overproduction occurs when a product or component is produced before it is needed. It can be tempting to produce as many products as possible when there is an idle worker or equipment. However, this leads to a number of problems, such as increased storage costs and wasted capital.

To overcome this problem, different production stations can be analysed to ensure that production levels are uniform. In addition, a pull system can be used where components are only produced when they are needed to fulfil an order.

Examples of this type of waste are: producing more pallets or timber than required through a 'push production system' or producing products in larger batch sizes than necessary.

Over-processing

More work or higher quality than required by the customer.

Over-processing is defined as performing more work, adding more components or having more steps in a product or service than required by the customer. In a manufacturing or recycling process, this could include using more precision equipment than necessary, using components with higher capacities than required, performing more analysis than needed, over-engineering a solution, adjusting a component after it has already been installed, and having more functionality in a product than needed. The key to solving this problem is always to start with the customer and produce according to their expectations.

Examples of this type of waste: using excessive automation to produce or recycle pallets, or designing a pallet and using more timber than necessary.