00:00Welcome to Unified Consulting Solutions, where we simplify complexity and amplify performance.
00:06Have you ever had that feeling on a project where you're just spinning your wheels?
00:09You know, where it feels like time and money are just sort of vanishing?
00:13Well, today, we're going on a hunt for the invisible enemy behind that feeling,
00:17a powerful concept the Japanese call Muda.
00:20So, let's just kick things off with a pretty staggering statistic.
00:24Studies have shown that in some industries, like construction,
00:26up to 57% of productive time is completely lost.
00:31Think about that for a second.
00:32More than half the day, just gone.
00:35This isn't some small leak in the system.
00:37It's a massive, gaping hole in your budget.
00:39It's called non-value-added time.
00:41And today, we're going to learn how to spot it, and more importantly, how to stop it.
00:46So, in this explainer, what we're going to do is give you a new set of eyes, really,
00:50a new lens to look at your work so you can spot these hidden profit killers
00:54and finally do something about them.
00:57Here's our game plan for today.
00:58We'll start with the hidden cost of all this inefficiency.
01:01Then, we'll properly introduce you to the enemy, Muda.
01:04After that, we'll break down the eight wastes using a really simple acronym,
01:08D-O-W-N-T-I-M-E, and show you how it all connects.
01:13Okay, let's dive right in.
01:14The first thing we need to do is really get our heads around the true scale of this inefficiency.
01:20You know, this whole philosophy, it originates from the revolutionary Toyota production system,
01:24and it all starts with this one powerful idea, Muda.
01:27It's a Japanese term, and it basically means wastefulness.
01:31Think of it this way.
01:32It's any activity that eats up your resources, your time, your money, your materials,
01:35but adds absolutely zero value for your customer.
01:38So, this is the crucial part, right?
01:42Learning to separate what's actually work from what's just, well, waste.
01:47I love this analogy.
01:49Value-added work is like a sculptor carving a masterpiece.
01:52Every single move is purposeful.
01:55It contributes directly to the final form.
01:57But non-value-added work?
01:59That's just carrying the heavy block of marble from one side of the studio to the other.
02:03It feels like effort, sure, but it's not getting you any closer to the finished statue.
02:07All right, so now we know what we're looking for.
02:10We've defined the enemy.
02:11But here's the thing about waste.
02:13It's a master of disguise.
02:14It loves to hide in plain sight, masquerading as the process or how we've always done it.
02:19The good news is, once I show you its disguises, you're going to start seeing it absolutely everywhere.
02:26And to make this super easy to remember, we've got a fantastic acronym for you.
02:31D-O-W-N-T-I-M-E.
02:34Simple, right?
02:35Each letter stands for one of the eight big wastes we're going to hunt down today.
02:39Okay, let's get into the first half of D-O-W-N-T-I-M.
02:43We're kicking it off with D for defects.
02:45And honestly, this is probably the one we're all most familiar with.
02:49And it's a painful one.
02:52Yeah, defects.
02:53You know that feeling, right?
02:54That horrible sinking feeling in your stomach when you realize, we have to do that again.
02:58It's the rework, the scrapped parts.
03:01It's literally paying to do the same job twice.
03:03It's just a direct hit to your schedule, your budget, and your reputation.
03:07Pure, avoidable waste.
03:09Now, you'd think defects are the biggest villain here.
03:12I mean, they're so obvious, so costly.
03:15But what the pioneers of lean manufacturing figured out is really interesting.
03:19There's another waste that's actually the parent of all the others.
03:22It's the one that starts the whole mess.
03:24And that brings us to O for overproduction.
03:28Overproduction.
03:29It's so tempting, isn't it?
03:30Making more than you need, sooner than you need it.
03:32It feels like you're being efficient, getting ahead of the game.
03:35But it is a total trap.
03:37It's the ultimate just-in-case mentality.
03:39When we should be aiming for just-in-time.
03:42All it does is create clutter, tie up your money, and as we're about to see, it sets off a nasty chain reaction.
03:48Ah, waiting.
03:50This one is the silent killer of productivity.
03:53Seriously.
03:54It's the team standing around, hands in their pockets, because they're waiting on a decision,
03:58or waiting for materials, or waiting for the previous step to get done.
04:01Every second spent waiting is a second you're not adding value.
04:06It's like your project timeline has a slow leak, and it's just bleeding out minute by minute.
04:11And that brings us to N for non-utilized talent.
04:15And for me, this one is the most tragic of all, because it's about people.
04:19It's when you have a team full of smart, experienced individuals, but you don't listen to them.
04:24It's when the person actually doing the job has a game-changing idea, but the system doesn't allow them to share it.
04:29You're not just missing out on an improvement.
04:30You're wasting the incredible potential of your own team.
04:34All right, we're halfway through.
04:35D-O and NWN is done.
04:37Now let's tackle the second half, T-I-M-E.
04:40And what you're going to see is how these next four are often direct consequences of the first four.
04:45First up, T for transportation.
04:47Now this is all about the unnecessary movement of stuff, materials, tools, you name it.
04:53Just think about it.
04:54A material gets delivered, moved to a lay-down yard, then moved again to the floor,
04:58then moved again to the point of installation.
05:00Every one of those moves costs money, burns fuel, and creates a new chance for something to get damaged.
05:06And for what?
05:06The final product isn't any better because of it.
05:08Next up, I for inventory.
05:11Remember overproduction?
05:13Well, this is its evil twin.
05:15Excess inventory isn't just a pile of stuff in the corner.
05:18It's a pile of cash just sitting there doing nothing for you.
05:22It's frozen capital.
05:23And what's worse, it's like a big blanket that hides all your other problems.
05:27You don't notice defects or delivery issues when you've got a giant pile of just-in-case inventory covering them up.
05:33Okay, so if transportation is about moving things, M for motion is all about the unnecessary movement of people.
05:41It's the little things, you know.
05:43The electrician walking all the way back to the truck for a tool.
05:46Or you clicking through a maze of folders on the server just to find one document.
05:50It seems small, but when you add up all those extra steps across your whole team for a whole year,
05:55you've basically paid for them to walk a marathon for no reason.
05:59And that brings us to the last one.
06:01E for extra processing.
06:03The perfect word for this is gold plating.
06:05It's doing more work than the customer ever asked for or is willing to pay for.
06:09It's applying a perfect finish to a part that's going to be hidden forever.
06:13It's creating a report that no one reads.
06:15It's that bureaucratic process with 10 approval steps when maybe, just maybe, one or two would do.
06:21It's complexity for complexity's sake.
06:23So there you have it, all eight wastes.
06:26But here's the really critical takeaway.
06:28These guys don't travel alone.
06:29They're a gang.
06:30They work together, feeding off each other, in a really destructive chain reaction.
06:34It's a classic domino effect.
06:36It all starts with overproduction.
06:38That's the first domino you push.
06:40And what happens?
06:41It knocks over the next one, which is inventory.
06:44That inventory has to be moved, so down goes the transportation domino.
06:47And every time you move it, you risk damaging it, knocking over the defects domino.
06:51You see?
06:52This is why Lean is so obsessed with stopping that first domino.
06:55If you can stop the overproduction, you stop the whole chain reaction dead in its tracks.
07:00Okay, so we've identified the enemy.
07:03We've seen how it operates.
07:04Now let's wrap this up by talking about what you can do about it.
07:08What's your path to becoming Lean?
07:10So let's boil it down to the key takeaways.
07:13Number one, Muda, or waste, is anything that doesn't add value in the eyes of your customer.
07:17Period.
07:18Number two, W-O-W-N-T-I-M-E is your new best friend for spotting it.
07:24Number three, wastes are interconnected.
07:26They cause each other.
07:27And maybe the most important takeaway of all, the secret weapon to fight all this waste?
07:31It's your team.
07:32Tap into their talent and you'll find the solutions to everything else.
07:35We hope you've achieved the learning objectives and now have a powerful framework for improvement.
07:40On behalf of everyone at Unified Consulting Solutions, I'm Dr. Marimuth-Luke, and thank you for joining us.
07:46Hey, if you got value out of this, please keep the conversation going.
07:50Join our LinkedIn community.
07:51The link is right down in the description.
07:53And of course, go ahead and like this video, share it, and hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any of our future content designed to simplify complexity and amplify performance.
08:02And for those of you who really want to go deeper on this subject, here are some of the foundational resources we pulled from for this session.
08:10They're fantastic reads.
08:12So, I'll leave you with this final thought.
08:15The real goal today wasn't just to teach you the eight wastes.
08:18It was to give you a new pair of glasses.
08:21And once you start seeing the world through this waste-spotting lens, you can never take them off.
08:25You'll see it everywhere.
08:27So, the only real question is, now that you can see it, what are you going to fix first?
08:31So, the only real question is, now that you can see it, what are you going to fix?
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