The 8 Wastes

Remove these elements of waste from your processes and experience Lean in healthcare

Typically, 95 percent of a total activity is non-value-add. The concept of Lean is to eliminate the waste and the non-value-add activities. Removing waste in a process requires intuition, creativity, courage, and strength. By developing and executing Lean strategies, a cultural shift in your organization will begin to take place. You will notice that it is much easier to institute change, provoke thought and leadership from all team members, and develop efficiencies you never believed to be possible.

Definition of Waste: Elements of a production or process that do not add value to a product or outcome, but increase cost.

The 8 Wastes: Tim P. Wood (acronym)

Transportation–Transporting supplies and materials around the department or lab.

Cause of transportation waste: poor layout, poor understanding of the process flow needed to meet the desired outcome, overstock, long lead times, and large storage areas.

Inventory–Excess inventory or supplies on shelves, racks, and floors.

Cause of inventory waste: just-in-case logic, long process setup, poor floor layout, par levels are not reviewed regularly. Money tied up in inventory is lost investment dollars. Shelves and floor storage consume working space.

Motion–Any movement of people or equipment that does not add value to the service.

Cause of motion waste: inconsistent work methods, unfavorable facility or process layout, poor workplace organization and housekeeping, extra “busy” movements while waiting. Unnecessary motion may include searching, turning around, walking, bending over, and more.

People–Not making the best use of staff member ideas, thoughts, and suggestions that lead to improvement.

Cause of people waste: existing culture, poor hiring practices, low to no investment in training and education.

Waiting–Waiting for equipment to become free or for supplies to arrive.

Cause of waiting waste: unbalanced workload, un-level scheduling, unplanned equipment downtime, long setup times, insufficient availability of tools, waiting for decisions, idle time due to lack of “standard” operations.

Overproduction–Making more than required by the next process or faster than required.

Cause of overproduction waste: working on the wrong part or service at the wrong time (not to schedule, not to demand), producing parts ahead of schedule while priority (hot) parts wait, long process setup, unbalanced workload.

Overprocessing–Effort that does not add value to the product or service from the customer’s viewpoint. A customer is any person that requires your service, i.e. the surgery department is a sterile processing department “customer.”

Cause of overprocessing waste: too many approvals, rework or corrections, too many steps or unnecessary operations, lack of communication, excessive or redundant information, not enough education or training.

Defects–Materials or services requiring correction, rework, sorting, or repair.

Cause of defects: poor process control, poorly planned equipment maintenance, inadequate training or instruction, customer needs not understood.