Quick Reference CardEight Wastes

04/19/2023 1

What are the Eight Wastes?Lean theory identifies eight wastes that add cost to business and generate no value to customers. Lean looks for these wastes, or non-value-added tasks, in a process and seeks to apply practical solutions to remove or reduce them. Value Stream Mapping to visually illustrate a process helps to accurately locate where any or all of these wastes are found. The Eight Wastes of Lean are as applicable to non-production activities as they are to production.

Waste Category Description Examples

Overproducing Producing more, sooner, or faster than is required by the next process

Printing unnecessary documents, sending a document to the printer prior to review

Inventory Any form of batch processing Adding more software than required, requesting duplicate office supplies

Waiting System downtime or response time; approvals from others; needing information from others.

Long waits for call center, system outages and downtime

Extra Processing Re-entering data; unnecessary or excessive reports; expediting; extra copies; month-end closing activities

Users need to submit numerous forms for one request, manual manipulation of automatable data

Correction Any form of defects Incorrect information entered into database, data needing to be recreated after deletion

Excess Motion Movement of people Relevant data not located in same directory, traveling between offices

Transportation Unnecessary movement of paperwork, parts, materials

Excessive e-mail attachments, too many handoffs to complete a project

Under-utilized People

Not leveraging people’s mental, creative, and physical skills and abilities to their full potential

Workers lacking authority to make decisions, mismatched employee with skillset