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b. Waiting - Typically more than 99% of a product's life in traditional manufacture is spent waiting to be processed or transported. It manifests as work in process inventories and production delays.

c. Transporting - Transporting product between processes typically adds no value, may cause damage and requisites investments in creating material handling infrastructure.

d. Inappropriate Processing - Many organizations invest in expensive high precision equipment where simpler tools would suffice. The need for greater capacity utilization tends to cause overproduction problems.

e. Unnecessary Inventory - Work in Progress (WIP) is a direct result of overproduction and waiting. It increases lead times, consumes productive floor space, delays the identification of problems, and inhibits communication.

f. Unnecessary / Excess Motion - This waste is related to ergonomics and is seen in all instances of bending, stretching, walking, lifting, and reaching. The Japanese call this Mura and it eventually leads to Muri, i.e., overburdening equipment or operators.

g. Defects - Quality defects resulting in rework or scrap are a tremendous cost to organizations. Associated costs include storage, re-inspecting, re-scheduling, and capacity loss.

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* Contributed by -
Amandeep S. Bedi & Namit Puri,
Indian School of Business (ISB),
Hyderabad.