Overview

Benjamin Franklin says: Waste not want not.

Most of the waste that is easy to get to is visible. Just look for trash, dirt, excessive work in process, people hanging around, and the accumulation of almost anything. The problem, normalization of deviance, will be discussed in depth in a subsequent section, but it is the reason why it is hard to see the accumulations. The piles look normal, and that is where the pointer lists come in useful.

Waste reduction can be as simple as improving the kinds of paint brushes (to reduce the time it takes to paint something, reduce the amount of paint used, and improve the quality of the job). Reduction of waste could also require deep knowledge of pump applications, such as evaluating two different pumps in the same application (with consideration of initial cost, availability, energy costs, reliability, repair costs, availability of spare parts, downtime, and downstream impacts).

In traditional Lean Manufacturing, several waste areas are identified. These areas have analogies in Lean Maintenance, and some represent major losses.

• Over-production is one of the uncommon wastes in maintenance. An example is when you are rebuilding valves and you might rebuild too many for immediate use.

• Time wasted in waiting is a major loss in maintenance. We are always waiting for another trade, for operations, for drawings, for something. This waste is one of the items that can be reduced by multi-skilling, planning, and scheduling.

• Time wasted moving people, tools, or materials to and from...