Hey y’all! I’ve been diving into some pretty cool stuff lately about how to make a workplace actually run right. In almost any job, there are “wastes”—basically, things we do that don’t actually help the customer or make the product better. And very often those “wastes” are the really “annoying” things about a job.
I want to show you how to hunt down these wastes. Because if you can spot them, you can help make your workday smoother and way less stressful. Here is your how-to guide for finding the 8 wastes at your station today.
The 8 Wastes Explained
Transport
This is when you move products or materials around for no good reason. If the movement isn’t a required part of making the product, it’s just a waste of time and energy.
Real-Life Example: Having to use a pallet jack to move heavy parts all the way across a warehouse just because the next machine is in a different building.
How to spot it: If you spend more time “hauling” than “making,” that’s transport waste.
Inventory
Having big piles of extra stuff sitting around doesn’t add any value. It takes up space and can get damaged or lost .In fact, too much inventory can “hide” bigger problems, like machines that keep breaking or bad work habits that need to be fixed.
Real-Life Example: Ordering 500 boxes of printer paper because they were on sale, even though your office only uses one box a week. Now you have no room to walk in the breakroom!
How to spot it: Look for closets, shelves, or floor space crammed with supplies you won’t need for months.
Motion
Pay attention to how your body moves while you work. Any movement that doesn’t directly help finish the job—like extra walking, reaching, lifting, or twisting—is a waste of your physical energy. This also includes having to constantly stop and “tweak” your equipment to get it to work right.
Real-Life Example: Keeping the tool you use every 5 minutes on the bottom shelf, so you have to bend down and reach into a dark corner every single time you need it.
How to spot it: If your back hurts or you feel like you’re doing “calisthenics” just to reach your tools, that’s motion waste.
Waiting
Keep an eye out for times when you are just standing there with nothing to do. This usually happens because you ran out of parts, the instructions aren’t clear, or the person before you hasn’t finished their part yet. If your hands are idle for any reason, you’ve found waste.
Real-Life Example: Sitting at your desk staring at the “spinning wheel” on your computer because the software is too slow to load the files you need.
How to spot it: If you find yourself saying, “I’m just waiting for…” (for a supervisor, for a machine, or for a slow computer), you’ve found it.
Overproduction
It’s actually the “mother of all wastes” because it leads to all the other ones. Are you making more items than the customer actually asked for right now? Making too much is one of the worst wastes because it causes other problems, like needing extra space to store the extras and wasting raw materials on stuff you can’t sell yet.
Real-Life Example: A fast-food kitchen making 40 breakfast burritos at 10:25 AM, right before they switch to the lunch menu. If nobody buys them, they just go in the trash.
How to spot it: Look for “extra” items being made “just in case” someone wants them later.
Over-processing
Look for steps in your job that don’t actually matter to the final customer. This could be things like putting on extra protective covers that aren’t needed or having to spend time cleaning up scrap material that shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Real-Life Example: Cleaning and polishing the inside of a machine part that no one will ever see and that doesn’t help the machine run better.
How to Spot: If you’re doing a step “because we’ve always done it” even though it doesn’t make the customer happier, or if you find yourself asking “Why am I doing this twice?” or “Does the customer even care about this step?” that’s over-processing.
Defects/Mistakes
Keep track of any time a product or service isn’t done right the first time. If it doesn’t meet the rules or specifications, it’s a defect. Having to go back and fix a mistake is a huge waste of everyone’s time. It costs time and money, or even worse, it gets sent to a customer and makes them mad.
Real-Life Example: Filling out a 10-page insurance form but accidentally putting the wrong date at the top, so the whole thing gets sent back and you have to start over.
How to spot it: Look for “rework” stations or trash bins full of parts that didn’t pass inspection.
Underused Talent
This is the most terrible waste of all. It’s when a company doesn’t listen to the people actually doing the work. Are employees being included in the process? If workers have great ideas but no one is listening or involving them in how things get done, the company is wasting the best resource it has—you!
Real-Life Example: You know exactly why a certain machine keeps jamming, but when you try to tell your boss, they say, “Just stick to the manual” and ignore your fix.
How to spot it: If you and your coworkers have ideas to make things better but nobody ever asks for your opinion, that’s a waste of your talent!