MUDA MURA MURI - The 3 M's of Lean Strategy

MUDA MURA MURI 

Just what are Muda, Mura, and Muri? The 3Ms of waste in Lean Manufacturing

When people think of waste in manufacturing they usually only think about all of the scrap material that gets thrown away or if you're luckily recycled, they often forget about all of the other actions that waste our time, our resources and our MONEY.

In this blog, we will discuss Muda 

Muda is any activity or process that does not add value; a physical waste of your time, resources and ultimately your money. These wastes were categorized by Taiichi Ohno within the Toyota production system, they are;

Transport; the movement of products between operations, and locations.

Inventory; the work in progress (WIP) and stocks of finished goods and raw materials that a company holds.

Motion; the physical movement of a person or machine whilst conducting an operation.

Waiting; the act of waiting for a machine to finish, for product to arrive, or any other cause.

Overproduction; Over producing product beyond what the customer has ordered.

Over-processing; conducting operations beyond those that customer requires.

Defects; product rejects and reworks within your processes.

Talent; failing to utilize the skills and knowledge of all of your employees
Resources; failing to turn off lights and unused machines
By-Products; not making use of by-products of your process

Many “lean” initiatives fail to see past the elimination of Muda and believe that the point of Lean is to just eliminate waste. This leads to implementations that initially appear to save money but quickly fall apart and revert as problems such as customer demand fluctuations and supplier problems occur. They have failed to tackle the other forms of waste identified by Toyota.

Written By 

Gazi Sanaul Hasan 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gazisanaulhasansupplychain/