The Seven Wastes - Oh No!

According to this article, Toyota's Chief Engineer Taiichi Ohno "created the seven wastes." Sort of makes him sound like the evil character in a fairy tale. ("And then, the hero had to cross the Seven Wastes."). The writer probably should have gone with "identified" instead of "created," but maybe that's just me. And because I'm still a 12-year-old in my head, I giggle a little bit every time they talk about the importance of "eliminating waste." (he he he).

Ok, I do have a point, so let's get to it. One of the seven deadly wastes is "transporting." Apparently, according to this Lean approach, "moving your product from one location adds no value to your product."

Really? To quote a source of wisdom far more ancient than the Lean Oracles, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." I think this old English proverb means, among other things, that location matters. We might even say that location adds value. Sure, I like to get free shipping when I order stuff, but I am willing to pay for shipping when I need to, because the right thing in the wrong location is of very little value to me.

How about an example? I'd pay more for a pizza that's in front of me than a pizza that's a hundred miles away. And whoever moved that pizza from far away to a location within arm's reach has increased the value of said pizza. Hey, when's lunch?

Am I missing something here? Sure, transportation of materials from point A to B and then back to A might be wasteful, but just because some movements do not add value doesn't mean all movements add no value. Seems like someone's fallen for a logical fallacy to me. I just don't see the evidence that moving a product never increases the product's value. In fact, I'm pretty sure location is the ultimate value. So transportation not only creates value, it unleashed all other sources of value. We might almost say transportation is the source of all value.

I'm hoping someone (Mark?) will enlighten me as to this particular aspect of waste. Did I misstate the case? Or did the article I referenced miss the boat? I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Waste

In a recent briefing, someone explained that a Lean Six Sigma analysis showed that 90% of what an organization does is "waste." Further research showed that the almighty Toyota, Masters of Lean, manage to occasionally reduce their waste to only 70% (on a good day).

Ok, this is me waving the BS flag.

First of all, how do we define "waste"? How do we measure it? Is all inefficiency in that category? And really, how much waste is appropriate? Should we aim to get to 70% like Toyota? Should we be content with 90%? His point seemed to be that there's a lot of improvement to be made. I'm not sure he really understood the implications of what he was saying - isn't it possible that 90% (if that's even the right number) is absolutely the least amount of waste we can reasonably expect to produce?

It really gets back to the question of rational optimization - and regular readers of this blog know I don't believe in optimization, at least not when it comes to human-centric activities like project leadership, technology development, etc. Yes, there's something to be said for streamlining our efforts... but there can also be great value in creative exploration, even if it doesn't lead directly to the outcome we think we want. Sometimes the messy, inelegant preparation phase of the project is the most fruitful (eventually), even though it appears to be "wasteful" at first.