“Lean Manufacturing” originally considered 7 types of waste:
Over time, experts in the field have suggested considering an 8th waste:
Taiichi Ohno created the Toyota system or Lean Manufacturing, and defined the original 7 wastes. Eliminating them is essential to become lean.
Understanding what “Value” means in the Lean context helps to recognize the presence of wastes in production processes. This implies seeing each process as its customer sees it, whether internal or external.
According to Lean Manufacturing, value is what the customer expects from a process (and for which they are willing to pay), everything else is waste.
Activities that, although necessary, such as an inspection, do not add value in the Lean context are called “incidental work” and should be minimized.
In today’s economic environment, the customer determines the price and companies are forced to reduce their costs to stay profitable. To achieve this the wastes need to be eliminated.
Doing so also allows to achieve a continuous, synchronized, and flexible flow, which translates into a more productive, healthy and sustainable future.
With M-Box you will be able to identify the wastes in your operation as the basis for improvement actions and processes to eliminate them.
These are just a few of the examples where M-Box can help recognize and eliminate the wastes of Lean Manufacturing to boost your factory productivity.