From the course: Lean Principles for Environmental Sustainability

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Seven wastes of Lean meet environmental wastes

Seven wastes of Lean meet environmental wastes

From the course: Lean Principles for Environmental Sustainability

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Seven wastes of Lean meet environmental wastes

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- "We must always keep in mind that the greatest waste is waste we cannot see." This quote by Dr. Shigeo Shingo, a quality guru and influencer of the Toyota production system points us to a set of hidden wastes in business. How can we see these wastes? Lean thinking has adopted a list of wastes based on Toyota's production system known as the Seven Wastes, which can affect productivity and efficiency in manufacturing and service industries, as well as healthcare construction and more. The seven letter acronym, TIMWOOD is often used to help, remember wastes caused by transportation, inventory, motion, waiting, overproduction, overprocessing and defects. So how can we adapt these to help us see environmental waste? Here are a few ideas. Transportation waste, in order to move parts from point A to point B, we can look for any excess energy used. Emissions from engines, damage caused by spills, or any special packaging required to enable transport materials. Considering inventory needs to…

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