Waste rarely announces itself. It looks like a busy team, a full floor and a delivery date that keeps moving. In a twenty-person operation there is usually no dedicated analyst watching for it, which is precisely why it accumulates. The classical categories are a useful checklist because they force you to look at activity you have stopped noticing.

1. Waiting

The most common and least visible waste in small operations. Work sits between stages: awaiting an approval, a part, a decision, a machine or an answer from the owner. Measure elapsed time against touch time for one order and the ratio is usually startling.

2. Rework and Defects

Anything done twice consumes capacity twice. Rework is frequently absorbed informally — corrected by the person who spots it, never recorded — so it never appears in any report and never gets fixed at source.

3. Overprocessing

Steps that exceed what the customer needs or has specified: extra finishing, duplicate inspections, a second approval on a low-value decision, or data entered into two systems because neither was retired.

4. Motion

People walking to fetch tools, materials, forms or signatures. Map the footsteps of one operator for an hour and the layout problem becomes obvious without any measurement equipment.

5. Transport

Moving work between locations adds cost and risk without adding value. Batches shuttled between benches, floors or premises are a common consequence of a layout that grew rather than one that was planned.

6. Inventory

Raw material, work in progress and finished goods held beyond need. Inventory hides other problems — unreliable suppliers, long changeovers, uneven scheduling — while consuming cash and floor space.

7. Overproduction

Making more than is required, earlier than required. Usually driven by batch economics or a desire to keep people busy, and it converts directly into inventory and obsolescence.

8. Unused Talent

Experienced staff performing tasks a junior could do, or holding improvement ideas nobody has asked for. The most reliable source of process improvement in an SME is the person who has done the job for eleven years.

Where to Begin

You do not need a formal programme to make progress. You need one process, one week of honest observation and a willingness to remove steps that only exist because nobody has questioned them.