Lean thinking classifies waste (muda) into eight categories, remembered as TIMWOODS. Every hour of your process that isn't value-adding fits somewhere on this list.
The list
- T - Transport: moving product between stations. Batching only makes it worse. Aim for one-piece flow.
- I - Inventory: work-in-progress sitting in a queue. Hides quality problems; ties up cash.
- M - Motion: operator movement that doesn't add value - reaching, twisting, walking to fetch tools.
- W - Waiting: idle time. The biggest waste in almost every value stream, because it's invisible unless you measure it.
- O - Overproduction: making more than the next step needs. Creates all the other wastes downstream.
- O - Overprocessing: doing more work than the customer values (extra polishing, unnecessary approvals, over-engineering).
- D - Defects: rework, scrap, quality escapes. Cost multiplies the further downstream the defect is found.
- S - Skills: underused talent. Sometimes called "non-utilised skills" - the pathologist who spends 30% of their day copy-pasting into spreadsheets.
Using it in MapVS
When you classify a stage as Waste or Incidental, MapVS asks you to pick a category. Analytics roll up total time lost per category so you can see which one is quietly eating your process.