MUDA

MUDA – Also see Timwood

In this article we want to talk about MUDA or the 7 kinds of waste known as TIMWOOD.

The seven kinds of waste have to be discovered and eliminated in daily operations. Therefore we will be looking at the 7 kinds of waste and learn how to use appropriate lean tools to reduce these non value-adding activities.

First of all use Gemba Walks to find out more about whats happening on the shop floor. Only through the on-site inspection you can see what is really going on. It is simply not possible to record the types of waste in the conference room at the green table. The CIP Kaizen action on site is always necessary to reduce waste.

When talking about production the ultimate goal is to increase value-creating activities in the complete organization and not to reduce them. Therefore non-value-adding activities are called MUDA - Japanese for wasteful.

Overview of the 7 kinds of waste and the lean approach to avoid these

The individual parts of muda are easily remembered with a simple mnemonic aid called TIMWOOD. TIMWOOD stands for the first letters of the several kinds of waste. Lets have a look at those and some hints what it means:

T = Transport

• Material flow

• Product-/Value-/Process orientation

• Just in Time material supply of workstations

• Pull steering of production with the Kanban principle

I = Inventory

• Just in Time or Just in Sequence material supply

• Pull steering of production with the Kanban principle

• Takt time

• Linking suppliers

• Reduction of batch sizes or production lots

• Implementation of One Piece Flow principle

 M = Motion

• 6 S principle   

• Standardization

• Fixed allocated spaces

• Shortest ways

 W = Waiting

• Multi machining

• Multi process handling

• Material flow in U-shaped manufacturing lines

• Implementation of SMED

• Installation of Andon Boards

 O = Overproduction     

• Leveling of manufacturing orders

• Mixed-Model-Production

• One-Piece-Flow

 O = Overprocessing/-engineering  

• Processes are not necessary

• Kaizen activities

• Quality circle

• Idea Management

• Reduction of complexity

• Reduction of components needed

• Reduction of unnecessary process steps

• Reduction of hand overs and quality loops

D = Defects

• Reduction of scrap rate or rework

• Internal customer supplier management

• Self-inspection

• Poka Yoke principle

• Automation

• Zero Defects principle

• Stop the line authority

• 5S activities as part of the standard work

• Visual Management and visual aids

S = Unutilized Staff

• Idea Mgt.

• Shop Floor Mgt.

• Lean Innovation

Each of the individual elements of the 7 kinds of waste often interact with each other. If you think about your organization as a system, it is necessary to classify not only one characteristics. An approach can only be derived when several classifications of waste have been analyzed.

The 3 MUDA expressions

With the individual process sections and activities and the corresponding 7 kinds of waste, they can be divided into the following activities:

Value Adding Activities 

Kanji Muda - Waste in terms of machinery and equipment

Hiragana Muda - Work that needs to be done in order to fulfill the task but not really add value

Katakana Muda - Everything not needed

All this combined is your total workflow

As seen in real life up to 75% of non-optimized processes are non-value-adding activities which means they are pure waste and eat up your resources. Therefore it always makes sense to eliminate each of the 7 kinds of waste in order to increase productivity. To get an idea see the following picture:

Katakana Muda (red - waste that can be eliminated immediately)

• Waiting

• Searching

• Filling

• Double work

• Stacking of components

Kanji Muda (gray and yellow - waste based on machines and equipment)

• Machinery movement without any function

• Oversized machines that can produce more than the required parts during the cycle time

Hiragan muda (green - work that is necessary for the provision of services under the current conditions; value-adding process steps)

• Return to starting position

• Cleaning

• Tightening

• Manual operation of machines

So how to recognize and eliminate the 7 kinds of waste?

Muda can always only be detected at the place of action. Therefore Gemba Walks are the best way to go on the search. But one thing has to be clear - it does not have to be always big projects to reduce waste. Continuous Improvement is key - recurring CIP or Kaizen activities are very supportive to develop an eye for the 7 kinds of waste. Training makes masters.

Second - it doesn’t has to be expensive. Most actions can be implemented at low cost. E.g. make a spaghetti plot to visualize and recognize obvious unnecessary movements.

Third - always have an eye on the value-adding activities. With a trained eye from GEMBA WALKS you will have improved awareness of waste already in the planing phase of new processes. Use those lessons learned and avoid waste in the beginning.

We don’t want to go into details but there are two other types of losses that can be witnessed in an organization. Mura meaning deviation and muri meaning overload (man, machine, material equally). If you want to read more about these, have a look here.  

Let us come to an end - even when it is hard, we could keep going on and on…

But some rules:

1. No excuses!

2. Be creative in first place - money always comes second

3. Never try to explain why something doesn't work, try how it works!

4. Adjustments kills your time and ambitions. Adjustment means to fight the symptoms not the root cause!

5. Do not worry about problems that do not yet exist.

Happy Improving!