The Waste of Waiting

Waiting is one of the seven wastes of lean manufacturing (or 7 mudas), it is the act of
doing nothing or working slowly whilst waiting for a previous step in the process. How
many times have you seen operators stood waiting for a previous operation, a delivery of
products to arrive or just slowly working so as not to highlight that they have run out of
materials.

Waiting is one of the Seven Wastes of Lean Manufacturing (7 Mudas)

-idle time created when material, information, people or equipment is not ready

-waiting for parts, prints, inspections, machines, information and machine repair

The Costs of the waste of Waiting

You pay for the time spent by all of your employees, time that they do not spend adding value
while they are waiting. Waiting is not something that your customer is going to want to pay for,
the cost of the time spent waiting will come direct from your profit, for every penny you can
save it is a penny put straight back into your profit.
Often the time spent waiting is made up later during overtime at a premium rate, good for your
employees but not so good for your profit.

Causes of the Waste of Waiting.

Unbalanced processes are a cause of waiting in your flow, if one process takes longer than the
next then the operators will either be stood there idle waiting or they will be performing their
tasks at a speed that makes it appear that they have work to complete.
Unreliable processes also cause waiting, the next process either waiting for the previous due to
breakdowns, quality issues, information, or for an overlong changeover to be completed.
The waste of Overproduction and waste of Inventory also cause the waste of waiting, this is due
to the fact that this material has to be transported (another waste) from one location to the next
usually as a large batch. The material handling is often a limited resource and the processes are
left waiting for the forklift truck to appear or for a neighbor to finish using the pump truck and so
on.
Information (or lack of it) can also cause waiting, either through unclear or missing information
to conduct an operation or even through waiting to know which product is required to be run
next

Causes
-Push Production - Push Production Planning

Push production planning involves deciding how many units to manufacture by working
from historical data, such as past sales levels or orders from retailers. The manufacturer
decides in advance how much to make and then hopes that this proves sufficient without
leading to oversupply.

-Work Imbalance -

-Centralized Inspection - Inspection is carried in a central place with all testing

equipment; sensitive equipment is housed in air-conditioned area. Samples are brought to
the inspection floor for checking. Centralized inspection may locate in one or more places
in the manufacturing industry.

1. Defects of job are not revealed quickly for prevention.

2. Greater material handling.
3. High cost as products are subjected to production before they are prevented.
4. Greater delay in production.
5. Inspection of heavy work not possible.
6. Production control work is more complicated.
7. Greater scrap.

-Order Entry Delays- This is a process of recording an order into the company's entry
system. Once an order has been entered, the company can view information about this
order and make necessary changes for the entry.
-Lack of Priority - Most often, a lack of time—time pressures, rushing, scrambling to
finish things, busyness

-Lack of Communication - or unhealthy communication introduces a sense of fear that

causes tension, which is counterproductive to efficiency.

Countermeasures
-Pull system - In its purest form, pull production planning means no work is done on
production until the manufacturer has received a specific order. When pull production is
taken to this extreme, and distribution is organized perfectly, the company will never
have inventory.
-Takt time production - Takt time is the maximum amount of time in which a product
needs to be produced in order to satisfy customer demand. The term comes from the
German word "takt," which means "pulse." Set by customer demand, takt creates the
pulse or rhythm across all processes in a business to ensure continuous flow and
utilization of capacities (e.g., man and machine).

- In-process gauging for high-production grinding applications involves measuring a

rotating workpiece through continuous contact during machining. The result, the gauge
is deep in the harsh machining environment where it is repeatedly introduced to the part
between cycles. For both ID and OD grinding applications close proximity to grinding
wheels and tooling are part of the process – collisions inevitably occur.

- Jidoka highlights the causes of problems because work stops immediately when a
problem first occurs. This leads to improvements in the processes that build in quality by
eliminating the root causes of defects.

- TPM emphasizes proactive and preventative maintenance to maximize the operational

efficiency of equipment. It blurs the distinction between the roles of production and
maintenance by placing a strong emphasis on empowering operators to help maintain
their equipment.

The implementation of a TPM program creates a shared responsibility for equipment that
encourages greater involvement by plant floor workers. In the right environment this can
be very effective in improving productivity (increasing up time, reducing cycle times, and
eliminating defects).

- Office Kaizen-Staff members are often asked to fill out two kaizen suggestion forms per
month as part of their monthly reporting requirements. Managers check the employees`
suggestions. It is then management`s responsibility to implement the suggestions or
explain why they cannot be implemented. This managerial responsibility is also
standardized.
 Written Report
In
Special Problems in
IE

Submitted by:
Jerome Dalisay

Submitted to:
Prof. Catherine R. Amboni