Spot the waste: seven kinds on the shop floor (3D)
About this app
A production in two halls with hidden waste (TIMWOOD): transport, inventory, motion, waiting, over-production, over-processing and defects. Click each find, read cause and countermeasure and watch the hall turn lean; inventory and lead time drop with it.
With explain mode: an AI tutor walks you through the app, points out what matters in the scene and answers your questions.
The seven wastes according to Ohno
Waste (Japanese muda) is anything that costs time, space or money without adding value for the customer. In the Toyota Production System, Taiichi Ohno described seven kinds, known as TIMWOOD: transport, inventory, motion, waiting, over-production, over-processing and defects. You have to see them before you can remove them.
What the app shows
A production in two halls with saw, lathe, mill, assembly, coordinate measuring machine and shipping. Each of the seven wastes is hidden in the scene: a forklift shuttles across the yard, crates pile up in front of assembly, a worker walks to the tool cabinet, the saw operator waits, finished goods stack up, parts are inspected twice, scrap ends up in the bin. Every find opens a card with cause, effect, countermeasure and lean principle.
What you try out
Click on anything that adds no value for the customer. After each find the hall rebuilds into the lean version: mill into the line, FIFO lane, shadow board, line balancing, kanban, a gauge instead of double inspection, poka-yoke. The KPIs follow: in the teaching model inventory falls from 600 to 46 pieces and lead time from 5 to 0.4 days. A hint mode with guiding questions helps in class.
Frequently asked questions
- What does TIMWOOD stand for?
- TIMWOOD is a mnemonic for the seven wastes after Taiichi Ohno: transport, inventory, motion, waiting, over-production, over-processing and defects.
- Why is over-production the worst waste?
- Producing more or earlier than the customer needs also creates inventory, transport and storage space and hides defects in stock. That is why Ohno calls it the worst waste; the countermeasure is pull, for example with kanban.
- What is the difference between over-production and over-processing?
- Over-production means too much and too early, i.e. parts without an order. Over-processing means more work on each part than needed, for example a tighter tolerance than the function requires or double inspections.
- How does the “Spot the waste” app work?
- You click on spots with waste in a 3D factory. Each find shows cause, effect and countermeasure, the hall switches to the lean version, and the KPIs inventory, lead time and value-added share change along with it.
Subject: Industrial Engineering
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