2014 Trizfest Triz For Waste Reduction To Trizjournal
2014 Trizfest Triz For Waste Reduction To Trizjournal
2014 Trizfest Triz For Waste Reduction To Trizjournal
in a “Lean Production”-Environment
Christian M. Thurnesa, Frank Zeihselb, Frank Hallfellb
a
University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern,OPINNOMETH, Amerikastraße 1, 66482 Zweibrücken, Germany
b
Synnovating GmbH, Mozartstraße 25, 67655 Kaiserslautern, Germany
Abstract
An essential component for the further dissemination of TRIZ may be the fit with widely spread
principles and programs. The combination of Lean-production and TRIZ seems to be easy but in real life
the most promising way is to identify blind spots in Lean and to apply TRIZ exactly there.
To continue works of the authors in this area, this paper shows how to add TRIZ to one of these blind
spots, the so called “necessary waste”. It describes the formulation of physical contradictions out of
“necessary waste” as the foundation to eliminate this kind of waste with TRIZ-tools completely whereby
in Lean it is only subject of reduction.
be moved, because transportation is waste. In the same way, activities in each category of necessary waste
can be defined as a contradiction.
So, attacking necessary waste targets a field that is essential (even if it has not the first priority for the
lean people) and where organizational embedding and lean-toolset usually are not defined very well.
Because by default any description of a necessary waste represents a contradiction, there might be TRIZ-
sessions to work on resolving contradictions like the TRIZ-enthusiasts ever did (see e. g. [14], [15]),
engaging the lean people to work on necessary waste.
An additional support for TRIZ users can be found in the “Lean-Operators for the 40 inventive
principles” [16] – these operators provide specific lean-interpretations of the inventive principles and
hints for their application in a lean environment.
Waste of Overproduction
In Lean-thinking, overproduction is the most serious kind of waste. Overproduction leads to all other
kinds of waste and is the root-cause for many disadvantages in production management. Basically,
overproduction means, that goods are produced without a need in this point of time. Maybe they are
produced to early or even completely in spec. Very often overproduction is the result of using free
capacities to do at least something, instead of doing nothing – naturally, this is an example for avoidable
waste. But there are other reasons for overproduction that may appear as necessary waste.
Example C01:
• <producing 100 parts>
• SHOULD NOT BE DONE, because it doesn’t add value (<only 60 parts ordered>)
• AND SHOULD BE DONE because of <load of the machine is 100 parts>
Example C02:
• <producing gas A>
• SHOULD NOT BE DONE, because it doesn’t add value (<only gas B ordered>)
• AND SHOULD BE DONE because of <joint-product production generates gas B only when
generating gas A>
Waste of Waiting
Waiting means, that a resource like a human being is doing nothing, because something necessary to
proceed didn’t happen. The logical impact is that the resource is doing nothing, but ordinary is paid for
doing something. But in Lean-thinking the most serious influence of waiting is the disturbance of flow. In
Thurnes, C.M./ Zeihsel, F./ Hallfell, F. 5
the range of this study, the formulation of contradiction has to concentrate of only the activities that are
classified as necessary waiting waste.
Example C03:
• <delay processing of product A>
• SHOULD NOT BE DONE, because it doesn’t add value (<flow is stagnating, resource doing
nothing>)
• AND SHOULD BE DONE because of <paint from previous process has to dry>
Waste of Motions
Ordinary the consumer of goods is not willing to pay for the fact that the employees at the factory have to
move a lot while producing the goods. So most of the motions are not adding value to the product
(exceptions are the motions connected with a value adding activity, like tighten a screw). Motion waste
generally is caused by the working procedures and/or by parameters of the layout and shape of materials,
work stations, machines and facilities. Ordinary one can find a lot of avoidable motion waste in
production processes – the activities that are declared as being necessary motion waste are very often
connected with parameters of the layout, that aren’t easily to change. For the following example, an
operator has to stretch to observe a material flow that is located behind his machine –the machine shape
as well as the layout may not reasonably be changed.
Example C04:
• <operator stretching body>
• SHOULD NOT BE DONE, because it doesn’t add value (<motion takes time, lowers quality and
concentration, provokes errors, burdens operator>)
• AND SHOULD BE DONE because of <observation of another process behind the machine>
Waste of Transporting
The previous chapter already discussed an example for this kind of waste, illustrating the difference
between avoidable and necessary waste of transporting. Drawbacks of transporting are the resources
needed for transport itself and all kinds of material handling related with transportation. But
transportation also increases the risk of quality issues and complex transportation aggravates the
information flow, which is very important for a continuous material flow. In this waste category the most
found activities may be avoidable waste. Like above, the reasons to declare activities as necessary have
their roots in aspects of the setting and the surrounding that are not allowed to be changed.
Example C05:
• <transporting boom segments of cranes from paint shop to testing area>
• SHOULD NOT BE DONE, because it doesn’t add value (<transport is not paid, risk of
transport loss>)
• AND SHOULD BE DONE because of <testing assembly needs available space of the testing
area>
Waste of Overprocessing
The waste of overprocessing (or inappropriate processing) describes the excessive fulfillment of a
function, using oversized procedures or machines as well as doing things that are absolutely not needed or
ordered – for example the grinding of a surface, that hasn’t got any functional or optical relevance and
that is just done because of the mood of the designers to design “proper” things. Naturally this is an
avoidable waste.
In Lean-thinking “big” machines and procedures are not only under suspect to disturb the flow of
materials and to be not very flexible, but also to provoke overprocessing. Regarding the necessity (that
has to be declared, when one is looking for necessary waste), very often parameters of machines or
6 Thurnes, C.M./ Zeihsel, F./ Hallfell, F.
processes show some potentials for the formulation of contradictions. Let’s have a look at a washing
machine that cleans complex metal parts from grease – the process could be cheaper, because only some
specific sections of the parts have to be cleaned, but the machine encompasses the complete part.
Example C06:
• <cleaning some sections of metal parts from grease>
• SHOULD NOT BE DONE, because it doesn’t add value (<cleaning of this sections lowers
efficiency and is not needed>)
• AND SHOULD BE DONE because of <washing machine stores the whole part, that also has
sections that must be cleaned>
Waste of Inventory
Inventory is a kind of waste that also fosters other wastes. Form this point of view it is similar to the
waste of overproduction. In fact some kind of inventory is the result of overproduction. But besides
finished goods, inventory may also exist in the form of raw materials or work in process. Accumulation of
inventory increases the throughput time and slows down the material flow. Also the information flow is
more complicated, when there are more objects that generate or need information. Besides some
avoidable reasons for inventory, inventory seems to be necessary, to protect the production system from
variations. So some “necessary” inventory buffers variation in the process and some inventory works as
safety buffer regarding disturbances of supply or orders.
Example C07:
• <safety buffer of 200 pieces part A>
• SHOULD NOT BE DONE, because it doesn’t add value (<increases work in process, costs, risk
for defects, transporting, motion>)
• AND SHOULD BE DONE because of <demand varies and supplier ships only once a week>
Waste of Defects
The waste of defects is self-explaining: defects cost money, material and other resources but ordinary are
not paid by the customer. In Lean-thinking there are further reasons, why defects have to be avoided.
Many lean concepts like one-piece-flow and Kanban only work with good pieces. The harm of defective
parts in such a surrounding is much bigger than just the costs of the defective part itself. Concepts like
Jidoka and Poka-Yoke are trying to filter out the avoidable waste of defects. In an existing production
environment, maybe some defects are declared as “necessary”, because the corresponding conditions can
not be changed – e. g. a SMD mounting machine produces not only good parts, but can not be replaced or
improved because of the costs.
Example C08:
• <processing of 5% defective SMD-boards>
• SHOULD NOT BE DONE, because it doesn’t add value (<Kanban-circles will collapse or have
to be oversized>)
• AND SHOULD BE DONE because of <SMD-mounting device has 5 % rejects>
Conclusion
For the dissemination of an useful methodology like TRIZ, it’s not only important to have the right tools
– it is also important to make them fit with the mindset and the methodological initial situation of the
target user group.
Based on some preliminary work the treatment of so called “necessary wastes” has been identified as a
very suitable chance to implement TRIZ-thinking and –tools in a Lean Production environment. This is
because:
• exactly in this point original lean methodology has some blind spots and
• necessary waste constitutes contradictions by itself, what is nearly ideal to apply TRIZ.
The paper just focused on the seven classical waste categories. Other categorizations may be used in the
same manner, as long as the emphasis stays on the necessary waste (not the avoidable waste).
The thoughts show above provide the motif and the tool, to integrate TRIZ in Lean procedures. This
combination opens up the chance to convince more and more Lean practitioners regarding the power of
TRIZ in attacking Muda-Type 1. This in turn may be the enabler to exploit a huge potential for further
dissemination of TRIZ into the Lean community.
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