Lean Manufacturing Wastes3M

3M WastesMudaAny form of waste in the processMuriUnreasonable Burden on people or machinesMuraUn-level workloadsOn people or machines

The 3Ms of waste in Lean ManufacturingMuda - seven wastes (or 8+ wastes depending on your definitions)

Mura - Waste of Unevenness or Inconsistency

Muri - Waste of Overburden

MURA - the Waste of UnevennessMura drives Muda!

Finding Mura (variation) in your ProcessBy failing to smooth our demand, we put unfair demands on our processes and people and cause the creation of inventory and other wastes.

Can result from MURA and from removing too much MUDA from the process

Utilizing machines or manpower more than 100% to finish their tasks

Machines breakdownsManpower - absenteeismMURI - the waste of Overburden

Causes of Muri - OverburdenWorking on process you are not trained inPoorly laid out workplacesCluttered workplacesUnclear instructionsLack of proper tools and equipmentFluctuating demand (MURA)Lack of proper maintenance/unreliable equipmentUnreliable processPoor communication routes

7 Wastes of Lean Manufacturing MUDA

Remove Wastes to Reduce Costs

7 Wastes of Lean Manufacturing The seven wastes of Lean Manufacturing are what we are aiming to remove from our processes by removing the causes of Mura and Muri as well as tackling Muda directly. But what exactly are the seven wastes of Lean Manufacturing (or 7 Mudas)?

The Seven Wastes of Lean Manufacturing are; D efects O verproduction W aiting N on-used Talent T ransport I nventory M otion E xcess Processing

Who is TIM WOOD? TIM WOOD lives in the WORM PITHow to Remember the 7 Wastes

TIMWOODTransportInventoryMotionWaitingOver ProcessingOver ProductionDefects

WORMPITWaitingOver ProductionRejectsMotionProcessingInventoryTransport

WASTESomething that adds no Value.

You earned 30 pesos more

the only way you have to improve your profits is to reduce your coststhis means removing all elements of waste from your processes

The Waste of MotionExcessive motion of either people or a machine is a waste.

Additional wastesWaste of TalentWaste of resources

Remove Muda, Mura and MuriConcentrate on solving MURA and MURI and you prevent the creation of MUDA!!!

Some techniques to remove specific wastes:MURA:Just in Time (JIT)Heijunka level loading of demandKanban

MURI:5S TPM

3M or MUs - the Killer Virus! It is shocking but true, almost all manufacturing shop-floors are inflicted by the 3Mu Virus! This infection can in fact extend beyond the shop-floor and inflict the entire organization or supply chain! But today, we will restrict our discussion to the shop-floor. Though it is a common virus, sadly it is not easy to identify or kill and it is really challenging to keep it out forever! 3 Mus -Muda,Mura andMuriare three Japanese words that roughly translate into Waste (non valuing adding), Variation and Excess Physical Burden. Just like human health is dependent on the total absence of any kind of virus (and other pathogens); similarly shop-floor health can be determined by presence orabsence of the 3Mu virus. 1st Mu the virus called Muda:It is a Japanese word that means waste. Here we refer to waste in activities within processes and not really waste in its physical form. That heap of material sitting as defects/ scrap on the shop-floor is not really referred to as Muda (waste). Muda in this case will be the wasteful activities involved in inspecting the production to find the defects or the rework that follows defect detection. So rework, inspection, here are the Mudas (wasteful activities). These activities are performed by people; it costs money to perform, consumes resources, but adds NO value. Activity that costs money; but adds no value to the customer (internal or external) is Muda. Muda is classically seen in eight forms: Overproduction: Producing items earlier or in greater quantities thanneeded by the customer. Producing earlier or more than is needed generatesother wastes, such asover-staffing storage, and transportation costsbecause of excess inventory. Inventory can be physical inventory or a queue of information.Waiting (time on hand): Workers merely serving as watch persons foran automated machine, or having to stand around waiting for the nextprocessing step, tool, supply, part, etc., or just plain having no work becauseof no stock, lot processing delays, equipment downtime, and capacity bottlenecks.Transportation or conveyance:Moving work in process (WIP) from place to place in a process, even if it is only a short distance. Or having to move materials, parts, or finished goods into or out of storage or between processes.Overprocessing or incorrect processing: Taking unneeded steps to processthe parts. Inefficiently processing due to poor tool and product design,causing unnecessary motion and producing defects. Waste is generatedwhen providing higher quality products than is necessary. At times extra work is done to fill excess time rather than spend it waiting.Excess inventory: Excess raw material, WIP, or finished goods causing longer lead times, obsolescence, damaged goods, transportation and storagecosts, and delay. Also, extra inventory hides problems such as productionimbalances, late deliveries from suppliers, defects, equipment downtime,and long setup times.Unnecessary movement: Any motion employees have to perform duringthe course of their work other than adding value to the part, such as reachingfor, looking for, or stacking parts, tools, etc. Also, walking is waste.Defects: Production of defective parts or correction. Repairing of rework,scrap, replacement production, and inspection means wasteful handling,time, and effort.Unused employee creativity:Losing time, ideas, skills, improvementsand learning opportunities by not engaging or listening to your employees. 2nd Mu the virus called Mura: Murais aJapaneseword meaning "unevenness; irregularity; lack of uniformity; nonuniformity; inequality",and is a key concept in theToyota Production System(TPS) as one of the three types of waste. Mura, in terms of business/process improvement, is avoided throughJust In Timesystems which are based on keeping little or no inventory, rather supplying the production process with the right part, at the right time, in the right amount, and first-in, first out component flow. Just in Time systems create a pull system in which each sub-process withdraws its needs from the preceding sub-processes, and ultimately from an outside supplier.

For example:The assembly line makes a request to, or pulls from the Paint Shop, which pulls from Body Weld. The Body Weld shop pulls from Stamping. At the same time, requests are going out to suppliers for specific parts, for the vehicles that have been ordered by customers. Small buffers accommodate minor fluctuations, yet allow continuous flow. If parts or material defects are found in one process, the Just-in-Time approach requires that the problem be quickly identified and corrected.When a preceding process does not receive a request or withdrawal it does not make more parts. This type of system is designed to maximizeproductivityby minimizing storage overhead. 3rd Mu the virus called Muri: Muri means avoidable physical strain/ burden on people and machines/ equipments at work. Same strain (within defined & safe limits) is to be expected at work, but when the strain becomes excessive, it becomes a burden It results in accidents, injury, leading to poor output or quality errors. A person, who in working in extreme conditions caused due to excess noise, temperature, fumes, etc,experiences Muri / burden.

Muri (overburden) on equipment means machines that are operating over its safe limits or set performance limits. Overloading, abuse, poor maintenance etc, causes Muri. Excess strain or Muri on an operator is to be measured through on site observations and trails. Of course at times someone sweating profusely or his strained posture while doing a job is a symptom by it self. Management must recognize it and fix it. Otherwise Muri will result in Mura variation! Strain/ Muri on equipments can be easier to identify. Machines will shudder, squeak, leak, stop, produce defects and finally protest and STOP!Just what are Muda, Mura and Muri? The 3Ms of waste in Lean Manufacturing.

When people think of waste in manufacturing they usually only think about all of the scrap material that gets thrown away or if your lucky recycled, they often forget about all of the other actions that waste our time, our resources and our MONEY.. When someone who has had some contact with Lean Manufacturing talks about waste they are often talking about Muda, or the seven wastes (or 8+ wastes depending on your definitions), but they often forget the other wastes defined within the Toyota Production System; Mura and Muri.

The 3 Ms of LeanWhen Japanese companies talk about waste they usually talk about the three Ms; Mura, Muri and Muda. While most people who have had contact with lean manufacturing will have been made aware of the 7 wastes and Muda they often have not been introduced to Muri and Mura at all. Yet these wastes are often far more important to tackle than Muda and often are the underlying causes of the Muda that you observe within your processes.While Muda is the non-value adding actions within your processes; Muri is to overburden or be unreasonable while Mura is unevenness. I will discuss these terms below.Mura is the waste of unevenness or inconsistency, but what does this mean and how does it affect us?

Mura creates many of the seven wastes that we observe, Mura drives Muda! By failing to smooth our demand we put unfair demands on our processes and people and cause the creation of inventory and other wastes. One obvious example is production processes where the manager is measured on monthly output, the department rushes like mad in the final week of the month to meet targets, using up components and producing parts not actually required. The first week of the month is then slow due to component shortages and no focus on meeting targets. This gives us the hockey stick graph of production as we see here on the right, far better to smooth out production and work at the demand of the customer.Finding Mura (variation) in your Process The Toyota Production System is a system built around minimizing threefactors influencinga process:Muda(waste),Mura(variation) andMuri(overburden). These three together formthe 3M Model. This article offers some more theory on Mura variation and how to reduce it. Variation exists in many forms and influences efficiency of a process in multiple ways. There is variance in customer demand, variance in product mix, variance in production methods within a plant or within processing times and variance in way of working.

Hopp & Spearman (2000) describe, among others, the following two laws concerning (production) variance:Variability will always degrade performance of a production system Variability in a system will be buffered by some combination of inventories, capacity or time.

To reduce the these types of buffers, there are roughly two things you can do: reduce variation in customer demand reduce variation in your processes

Influencing theVARIATION OF CUSTOMER DEMANDhas everything to do with cooperation in a supply chain. When organizations in a supply chain do not share information about customer demand or inventory levels, thebull-whip effectemerges whenever customer demand fluctuates. This effect describes how a small change in customer demand from end customers can lead to a high change in order size upstream in the chain, which in turn leads to large inventories in the overall supply chain. Each link in the chain will have the tendency to order extra when an order cant be met due to an unexpected shift in customer demand, especially when a backlog exists. The longer the total lead time in the supply chain (hence, delivery times between the links) , the higher the bull-whip-effect. Also, the higher the number of links in the chain, the higher the bull-whip-effect. In this sense, each link in the chain is a customer of the link upstream in the chain. Three recommendations to reduce the variation of customer demand are:Reduce the number of links in a supply chain. External warehousing or moving parts of a plant is not a good idea in this sense. Reduce delivery times between links. Offshoring across the world? The possible six weeks of transport times arekillingfor inventories and lead times in the chain. Create transparency between links in the supply chain when it comes to order portfolios. This will reduce the tendency to increase the order size at every link.

There are different methods to reduceVARIANCE IN THE PROCESS. The variation in product mix has relatively low impact on a production process when the processing times are balanced for different products.

There are at least four methods to reduce this form of variance:Modular product design at design level Production leveling in production planning building Flow at production-level standard work and 6S on workstation level

At the level of production design, the variation between products can be minimized by using modular designs.Using standard modules will reduce the number of possible material routings in the factory and a number of inventory items. One example of modular design is a series of wardrobes at IKEA where a choice between a number of drawers, doors and handles lead to a relatively large amount of combinations for end customers to buy. A method to reduce the impact of customer variance in the production planning is the (Lean) toolHeijunka(production-leveling). With Heijunka one defines a fixed interval in which all product types can be produced. The shorter the intervals, the more often a product is produced and the shorter the lead time of each product will be. Because the lead time is reduced, the uncertainty in customer demand reduces as well. When yearly customer demand is cut in smaller pieces, changes in customer demand can be smoothed out between the different production runs. To implement Heijunka, changeover times should be minimized to minimize cost of changeovers. A tool which can be used for reducing changeover times is SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Die). Next to optimizing product design and production planning, the way products move through the plant should be optimized. Ideally, productsflowthrough the plant, which means products never have to wait to be worked on as they move between the necessary workstations. When the processing time of workstation 2 is larger than workstation 1, either every product coming from workstation 1 has to wait before station 2 can work on it, or station 1 has to wait for free capacity at workstation 2. A graphical way of visualizing the line balance is the Yamazumi. At workstation-level all operator handling should be optimized to minimize production variation.Standardizing procedures and lay-outprevents different work cycles for different operators performing the same task and employees to search for materials or tools they need.Standard workdescribes the safest and efficient method to perform a certain sequence of tasks while6Sdescribes the safest and most efficient lay-out for a workstation. Reducing variation is one of the reasons Standard Work and 6S form the basis of every Lean implementation, which is why they are the foundation of theLean House for the Shop-Floor.Reducing Mura (variation) is important for every Lean organization. Variation is always buffered by either inventories, capacity, time, or a combination of those. MoreMuratherefore leads to moreMuda(waste). Eliminating waste will lead to higher results if variation is also reduced. By applying (a number of) the tools described in this article, the impact of variation on any production process can be reduced. The lower the impact of variation on your process, the higher the flexibility to respond to changes in customer demand.Muri the waste of OverburdenMuri is to cause overburden, by this we mean to give unnecessary stress to our employees and our processes. This is caused by Mura and a host of other failures in our system such as lack of training, unclear or no defined ways of working, the wrong tools, and ill thought out measures of performance. Again Mura causes Muda, the seven wastes are symptoms of our failure to tackle Mura and Muri within our processes not the root cause!

MURI, overburden, can result from Mura, and from removing too much Muda(waste) from the process. When operators or machines are utilized for more than 100% to finish their task, they are overburdened. This meansbreakdownswhen it comes to machines and absenteeism when it comes to employees. To optimize the use of machines and make sure they function properly, preventative- and autonomousmaintenance can be implemented. To prevent overworked employees, safety should be the focus of all process designs and all standard work initiatives. Muda, The Seven WastesMuda is any activity or process that does not add value; a physical waste of your time, resources and ultimately your money. These wastes were categorized by Taiichi Ohno within the Toyota production system, they are;Transport; the movement of product between operations, and locations. Inventory; the work in progress (WIP) and stocks of finished goods and raw materials that a company holds. Motion; the physical movement of a person or machine whilst conducting an operation. Waiting; the act of waiting for a machine to finish, for product to arrive, or any other cause. Overproduction; Over producing product beyond what the customer has ordered. Over-processing; conducting operations beyond those that customer requires. Defects; product rejects and rework within your processes.

To this list of the original seven wastes most people also add the following;Talent; failing to utilize the skills and knowledge of all of your employees Resources; failing to turn off lights and unused machines By-Products; not making use of by-products of your process

Many lean initiatives fail to see past the elimination of Muda and believe that the point of Lean is to just eliminate waste. This leads to implementations that initially appear to save money but quickly fall apart and revert as problems such as customer demand fluctuations and supplier problems occur. They have failed to tackle the other forms of waste identified by Toyota;How to Remember the 7 Wastes

There are a couple of Simple Mnemonics that you can use to help you remember the 7 Wastes. The first is to ask your self Who is TIM WOOD?

TIMWOODTransportInventoryMotionWaitingOver ProcessingOver ProductionDefectsTimWood comes from Standard-Cooper in the UK where I first started my career as a young Quality Engineer in the Automotive Industry. It is now probably the most recognized way of remembering the seven wastes.An alternative isWORMPIT;WaitingOver ProductionRejectsMotionProcessingInventoryTransportUsing either TIMWOOD or WORMPIT will help you to remember your seven wastes, very useful if you are training others and have to list them out on a board.What Exactly is Waste?

The simplest way to describe waste is as Something that adds no Value. Our customers would not be happy to pay for any action that we take that does not add value to what they actually want and nor should we be.

Would you be happy if you received a bill in a restaurant that included a meal that was prepared in error? No; you would argue and demand that it was removed from your bill; yet if you buy a product in a store the price that you pay will contain costs that you would not want to pay. Would you want to pay for the machine operators wages whilst they sat idle waiting for a delivery, or for the rework processes that had to be undertaken because the machine was incorrectly set, or even for storing your product for three months before it was delivered to the store? These wastes are included within the cost of your products, either inflating the price you pay or reducing the profit of the company. Why Remove Waste?

Your companies Profit is your selling price less your costs, no matter how you think about the selling price it is very much dictated by the market not by yourself. If you charge too much then your customers will go elsewhere, even if you charge too little you may lose customers as they will perceive there may be something wrong with what you are offering. Therefore the only way you have to improve your profits are to reduce your costs; this means removing all elements of waste from your processes.

In addition to improving your profits you will find that waste has a major impact on your customers satisfaction with your products and services. Your customers want on time delivery, perfect quality and at the right price. Something that you cannot achieve if you allow the 7 wastes to persist within your processes. The Waste of Transport Transportation is a waste and costs you money.Transport is the movement of materials from one location to another, this is a waste as it adds zero value to the product. Why would your customer (or you for that matter) want to pay for an operation that adds no value? Transport adds no value to the product, you as a business are paying people to move material from one location to another, a process that only costs you money and makes nothing for you. The waste of Transport can be a very high cost to your business, you need people to operate it and equipment such as trucks or fork trucks to undertake this expensive movement of materials.The Waste of Inventory Inventory Hides ProblemsInventory costs you money, every piece of product tied up in raw material, work in progress or finished goods has a cost and until it is actually sold that cost is yours. In addition to the pure cost of your inventory it adds many other costs; inventory feeds many other wastes. Inventory has to be stored, it needs space, it needs packaging and it has to be transported around. It has the chance of being damaged during transport and becoming obsolete. The waste of Inventory hides many of the other wastes in your systems.

The Waste of Motion Excessive motion of either people or a machine is a waste.Unnecessary motions are those movements of man or machine which are not as small or as easy to achieve as possible, by this I mean bending down to retrieve heavy objects at floor level when they could be fed at waist level to reduce stress and time to retrieve. Excessive travel between work stations, excessive machine movements from start point to work start point are all examples of the waste of Motion. All of these wasteful motions cost you time (money) and cause stress on your employees and machines, after all even robots wear out.The Waste of Waiting Eliminate the waste of waiting to make your processes smootherHow often do you spend time waiting for an answer from another department in your organization, or waiting for a delivery from a supplier or an engineer to come and fix a machine? We tend to spend an enormous amount of time waiting for things in our working lives (and personal lives too), this is an obvious waste. The Waste of Waiting disrupts flow, one of the main principles of Lean Manufacturing, as such it is one of the more serious of the seven wastes or 7 mudas of lean manufacturing.The waste of Overproduction Over producing what the customer does not want now is a wasteThe most serious of all of the seven wastes; the waste of overproduction is making too much or too early. This is usually because of working with oversize batches, long lead times, poor supplier relations and a host of other reasons. Overproduction leads to high levels of inventory which mask many of the problems within your organization. The aim should be to make only what is required when it is required by the customer, the philosophy of Just in Time (JIT), however many companies work on the principle of Just in Case!The Waste of Over-processing Doing More than the customer wants costs you moneyThe waste of Overprocessing is where we use inappropriate techniques, oversize equipment, working to tolerances that are too tight, perform processes that are not required by the customer and so forth. All of these things cost us time and money. One of the biggest examples of over-processing in most companies is that of the mega machine that can do an operation faster than any other, but every process flow has to be routed through it causing scheduling complications, delays and so forth. In lean; small is beautiful, use small appropriate machines where they are needed in the flow, not break the flow to route through a highly expensive monstrosity that the accountants insist is kept busy!The Waste of Defects Defects hide many other problems and wastesThe most obvious of the seven wastes, although not always the easiest to detect before they reach your customers. Quality errors that cause defects invariably cost you far more than you expect. Every defective item requires rework or replacement, it wastes resources and materials, it creates paperwork, it can lead to lost customers. The Waste of Defects should be prevented where possible, better to prevent than to try to detect them, implementation of pokayoke systems and autonomation can help to prevent defects from occurring.Additional wastesWaste of Talent; failing to make use of the people within your organization. This is an issue that many of our companies in the West fail to address. We still tend to operate within a command and control environment and take little real notice of what our employees really think and what they can contribute. Your employees are your greatest asset by far and can help you to drive out many of the other wastes. Waste of resources; failure to make efficient use of electricity, gas, water. Not only does this waste cost you money it is also a burden on our environment and society as a whole. Wasted materials; too often off-cuts and other byproducts are just sent to landfill rather than being utilized elsewhere.Eliminating the Seven Wastes

Eliminating the seven wastes is something that can be done through the implementation of Lean and the various lean tools, however the focus of your implementation should not be to identify and remove waste. Instead you should use the principles of lean manufacturing to identify value according to the customer and make those value adding processes flow through your organization at the pull of the customer. This approach helps you to make your value adding processes more efficient and causes the waste to literally dissolve.

Approaching lean from a perspective of removing the 7 wastes rather than making value flow however usually ends up with us making non-value adding processes more efficient and we get better and better at doing things that the customer does not want. To eliminate the 7 wastes of lean we have to focus on the lean principles and value as perceived by our customers.

Remove Muda, Mura and Muri

Lean Manufacturing is about the removal of waste; but not just Muda (non-value adding steps), it is about removing Mura and Muri too. In fact by concentrating on solving Mura and Muri you prevent the creation of Muda. By working on Just in Time (JIT) principles with Heijunka, Kanban and other techniques you enable production smoothing and flow; removing the causes of Mura, unevenness. The other lean tools such as 5S and TPM help you to remove other causes of overburden removing Muri, overburden.

You should first concentrate on ensuring that your Mura is removed and creating a level predictable flow; this in turn highlights the Muri (unreasonableness) within your system which can then be eliminated. By following this route you will often eliminate the vast majority of Muda that is present within your system.

Muda, Mura and Muri can be eliminated or signifcantly reduced if you implement the various lean tools and principles. But dont just rush in to try and highlight and remove the muda in the hope of making a quick impression on your boss; it will be a short lived success as without tackling the other Ms Mura and Muri you will find the other wastes of Muda returning to haunt you.