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7 Wastes
What is waste in lean manufacturing?
It is any activity that uses resources but creates no value.
Examples of this include:
• the production of items no one wants
• movement of employees and transportation of goods between places without purpose
• waiting around for machine to run its cycle
• goods and services that don’t meet the needs of customers.
FIRA engineers define wastes into one of seven types. Identifying ‘waste’ in our processes is the key to improvements. The FIRA engineer will use a video camera to film all or parts of the process and use the team involved in the relevant areas to spot waste in the process and separate it into one of the seven categories. The issues identified are then brainstormed to come up with countermeasures that are converted into actions with responsibilities and timescales.
The team used their new knowledge to identify the wastes into their seven categories after observing the video.
RESULT - 37 wastes identified.
Prioritising each waste was judged in terms of Hard / Easy to implement and Low / High cost.
RESULT - created an action plan to resolve 13 items and reduce waste.
ACTION PLANS
By undertaking the renowned FIRA Process Improvement Workshop in its frame assembly operation, DFS has achieved the following improvements:-
- People Productivity up 15%
- Frame kitting 'right first time' up 96%
- Delivery on Time to Upholstery up 64%
Click here to view the DFS Case Study pdf
For more information about how FIRA can help you reduce waste in lean manufacturing please contact Bruce Lovell on 01438 777700 or email blovell@fira.co.uk
