Module 5 · Process Improvement with BPMN and Lean
The eight wastes
Learn to see waste in any process with the eight Lean wastes, find the evidence for each in data and observation, and size it so the biggest gets fixed first.
About 20 minutes
The problem
Walk through Harbourline's clearing office and nobody looks idle. The documentation team is checking files, phoning customers about missing permits, re-checking corrected files, re-typing data from emailed PDFs into the customs portal, and printing copies "just in case". Everyone is busy. Much of that busyness adds nothing the customer would pay for.
Lean calls this waste: anything that uses time, money or effort without adding value from the customer's point of view. It's hard to see because it looks like work. The eight wastes are a checklist that trains you to spot it.
The concept
Value-adding or not?
A step adds value when the customer would willingly pay for it, it changes the item in a way the customer cares about, and it's done right first time. Checking documents is arguably necessary (customs requires it), but re-checking them because they were wrong is pure waste. Steps that are needed but add no value (regulatory checks, for example) are "necessary non-value-adding": minimise them, don't pretend they're value.
The eight wastes (DOWNTIME)
| Waste | In an office or service process | At Harbourline |
|---|---|---|
| Defects | errors, rework, corrections | incomplete documents, correction loops |
| Overproduction | doing more, or sooner, than needed | reports nobody reads; printing every file |
| Waiting | items or people waiting | waiting for corrected documents, duty payment, inspection |
| Non-utilised talent | people's skills and ideas unused | clerks who know which customers always forget permits, but aren't asked |
| Transportation | moving items or information unnecessarily | documents emailed back and forth between teams |
| Inventory | work piling up | containers stacked at port; a backlog of files to check |
| Motion | unnecessary movement or searching | searching inboxes for the latest version of a document |
| Extra processing | doing more than the customer needs | re-typing data from PDFs into the customs portal |
Evidence, not opinion
For each waste, find evidence: a number from the data, an observation, or a quote. Then size it in time or money, so the team fixes the biggest waste first rather than the most annoying one.
Example
Defects, sized from the event log. Before the pilot, Harbourline's documentation team sent 136 requests for corrected documents, and 25 clearances needed two rounds of correction. The correction loop added an average of about three days to every clearance that went through it. At ₦45,000 per container per day once the free days are used up, those days are the most expensive waste in the process.
Walkthrough
- Walk through the clearance process (from your BPMN model) and, at each step, ask "would the customer pay for this?"
- For each of the eight wastes, write down one example at Harbourline.
- Find evidence for each from the event log, from the cases table, or from what you'd observe in the office.
- Size the biggest wastes in hours, days or naira.
- Write your waste list (the task below), biggest first.
Practice
Practice
Before the pilot, how many Request corrected documents events were there?
Task
10 minList at least five of the eight wastes in Harbourline's clearance process. One per line, in the form Waste | example at Harbourline | evidence or size. Put the biggest first.
Your work is checked for
- At least five lines in the form Waste | example | evidence
- Each line starts with one of the eight wastes
- At least three lines include a number
- Includes waiting
- Includes defects
Check your understanding
Answer every question to check.