The 7 Wastes
The fundamental principle of "Lean" within an organisation is the elimination of wasteful activities, with the acknowledgement that quality and safety should not be compromised.
The 7 Wastes categories will guide your improvement team to the wasteful activities within the process, and structured application of the improvement tools can be used to remove them. This will take cost out of the process and reduce the lead-time of your product
The 7 Wastes categories will guide your improvement team to the wasteful activities within the process, and structured application of the improvement tools can be used to remove them. This will take cost out of the process and reduce the lead-time of your product
The Divisions of Work
By accepting that there are wasteful activities within the process, then it is easy to accept that there are different types of work done. Normally the basic divisions of work are described as Value Adding (VA), Non-Value Adding (NVA), and Waste.
In a manufacturing environment VA work is the effort required to physically change the part throughout the process to meet the customer specification. NVA work is the effort required to maintain the manufacturing process, but does nothing to change the part. This could be set-up of machines, maintenance and breakdown activity, inspection (generally), loading of machines, etc. These things need to be done under the current way of working, but ideally should minimised. Waste is the effort put into all other work that may be unnecessary or excessive in the following categories:
As a rule of thumb, if you understand what is the VA element of your work content, then everything else is open to improvement.
Process Improvement in a Non-Manufacturing environment
The terminology generally used with "lean" has a tendency to have a manufacturing bias, however the same principles can be applied to any process. If you talk to a manufacturing specialist about Value Adding work then it will focus on the part, but there are many other types of process. With a slight shift in thinking and terminology the divisions of work and Lean principles can successfully be applied to any process, and anyones work role. This is how we look at this:
By accepting that there are wasteful activities within the process, then it is easy to accept that there are different types of work done. Normally the basic divisions of work are described as Value Adding (VA), Non-Value Adding (NVA), and Waste.
In a manufacturing environment VA work is the effort required to physically change the part throughout the process to meet the customer specification. NVA work is the effort required to maintain the manufacturing process, but does nothing to change the part. This could be set-up of machines, maintenance and breakdown activity, inspection (generally), loading of machines, etc. These things need to be done under the current way of working, but ideally should minimised. Waste is the effort put into all other work that may be unnecessary or excessive in the following categories:
- Overproduction
- Inventory
- Transportation
- Process
- Idle Time
- Operator Motion
- Bad Quality
As a rule of thumb, if you understand what is the VA element of your work content, then everything else is open to improvement.
Process Improvement in a Non-Manufacturing environment
The terminology generally used with "lean" has a tendency to have a manufacturing bias, however the same principles can be applied to any process. If you talk to a manufacturing specialist about Value Adding work then it will focus on the part, but there are many other types of process. With a slight shift in thinking and terminology the divisions of work and Lean principles can successfully be applied to any process, and anyones work role. This is how we look at this:
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We can now look at understanding what the fundamental requirements of the role and the associated necessary work required to support that activity. Everything else is a distraction and can be categorised as wasteful activity. |
