The 8 Wastes of Lean (DOWNTIME) With Shop Floor Examples

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By Mirko Peters · 2026-11-11

The 8 wastes of lean are defects, overproduction, waiting, non-utilized talent, transportation, inventory, motion and extra-processing. See shop floor examples.

The 8 wastes of lean are defects, overproduction, waiting, non-utilized talent, transportation, inventory, motion and extra-processing. Together they spell DOWNTIME, a memory aid. This article is for lean managers who want to see these wastes in their own plant, not just recite them. It explains each waste with a shop floor example, shows how to find them in a process, and gives a worked example with numbers and the mistakes that come with waste hunting.

Key points

• The eight wastes of lean, remembered as DOWNTIME, are defects, overproduction, waiting, non-utilized talent, transportation, inventory, motion and extra-processing.
• Muda is the Japanese word for waste: any activity that uses resources but does not add value the customer would pay for.
• Taiichi Ohno defined seven wastes. Later authors added the eighth, the waste of talent, which is the unused knowledge and ideas of the people doing the work.
• Find waste by watching the work at the gemba, mapping the value stream and asking at each step whether the customer would pay for it.
• Fix the cause, not the symptom. Cutting inventory or waiting without removing its cause just moves the problem somewhere else.

What are the 8 wastes of lean?

In lean, waste means any activity that uses time, material or effort without adding value that the customer would pay for. The Japanese word is muda. The Toyota Production System aims to thoroughly eliminate waste and shorten lead times, according to Toyota's own description of the system.

In lean manufacturing, the types of waste are grouped by what they do to the production process: they create idle time, extra work and lost productivity. The list of eight wastes is a tool for seeing. Most waste is invisible because everyone is used to it. A category makes you ask a concrete question: where does waiting show up here? Where do we make things twice?

The acronym DOWNTIME names the eight in a fixed order:

• Defects
• Overproduction
• Waiting
• Non-utilized talent
• Transportation
• Inventory
• Motion
• Extra-processing

Do not confuse the acronym with machine downtime, the time a machine is not running. That is only one cause of waiting.

Why are there seven wastes and an eighth?

Taiichi Ohno originally defined seven wastes. The Lean Blog overview of the eight wastes says later publications by others, including Norman Bodek, added an eighth: the waste of talent. Some sources still list only Ohno's seven and argue that the loss of talent is already inside the others. The overview lists it separately.

The practical view: use eight. The eighth waste is the one a plant manager can fix cheaply. It is the knowledge of operators that nobody asks for. The same source puts it this way: the deeper form of this waste is what happens when we do not ask people what they think.

What does each waste look like on the shop floor?

The definitions below follow that overview. The examples are typical situations, not measured data.

1. Defects. Any work activity that is not done right the first time. Shop floor example: a part with a wrong dimension goes to rework, or a missing weld is found at final inspection.
2. Overproduction. Doing more than the customer needs, or doing it sooner than needed. Example: a press runs a large batch because the changeover is long, and the parts wait three weeks for an order.
3. Waiting. Time when nothing value-added is happening. Example: a machine stands idle because the material has not arrived, or an operator waits for the first-off approval.
4. Non-utilized talent. The loss when people's knowledge and ideas go unused. Example: an experienced fitter sees a better way to clamp a part, but there is no routine in which the idea gets heard.
5. Transportation. Excess movement of the product through the system. Example: parts travel by forklift from one hall to another and back, because the layout separates steps that belong together.
6. Inventory. The page makes a point that matters here: excess inventory is the waste, not all inventory. Inventory waste ties up cash and space. Example: pallets of semi-finished parts pile up between two stations because the second one is slower.
7. Motion. Motion waste is unnecessary movement by employees. Example: an operator walks to a distant cabinet for a gauge several times per shift.
8. Extra-processing. Also called extra processing or overprocessing: doing work to a higher level of quality than required, or doing work that serves no purpose. Example: grinding a surface that the drawing does not require to be smooth, or a report that nobody reads.

Notice that the wastes feed each other. Overproduction creates inventory. Inventory hides defects. Defects cause waiting for rework. Fix one, and you often see the next.

How do you find waste in your plant?

You find it by looking at the work, with the people who do it.

1. Go to the gemba. Gemba is the Japanese word for the real place, here the shop floor. Watch one process for an hour without talking. Write down every wait, walk, rework and search.
2. Ask one question per step. This follows the first of the lean principles, value from the customer's view. Would the customer pay for this step? If no, ask whether it is still needed, for example for safety or law. Needed but not valued is a target for reduction. Not needed is a target for removal.
3. Map the flow. A value stream map shows each step with its time, the queues between steps and the stock. The long waits and piles of stock mark where waste lives.
4. Use the eight categories as a checklist. Walk the map and mark each problem with the matching waste. Several marks at one step show where to start.
5. Ask the operators. Ask what creates delay, frustration, risk or rework. This is the best cure for the eighth waste.
6. Rank and pick. Count how often each waste appears or how many minutes it costs. Work on the top two or three.

How do you reduce waste without creating new problems?

Remove the cause, not only the symptom. A few cases show the difference.

• Inventory. Cutting the stock between two stations without fixing the slower station only causes the faster one to stand still. Find out why the stock built up: a bottleneck, a long changeover or an unreliable machine.
• Overproduction. Small batches need short changeovers. Without them, the plant will return to big batches.
• Waiting. Check whether it is a flow problem, such as unbalanced steps, or a supply problem, such as late material.
• Defects. Fix the source of the defect, not the inspection. More inspection finds more defects but does not prevent them.
• Transportation and motion. Change the layout or the position of tools so that the movement disappears, rather than making the walk faster.

After each change, update the standard and measure again. This is how waste reduction becomes part of continuous improvement, not a one-off clean-up.

Example: one operator's shift

This is an illustration with made-up numbers.

A team leader observes one operator for a full 480-minute shift and records how the time is spent.

• Value-adding work: 200 minutes.
• Necessary but not value-adding work, such as setup, inspection and handover: 100 minutes.
• Waste: 180 minutes. This is 70 minutes of waiting for material and approvals, 50 minutes of walking and searching, 40 minutes of rework and 20 minutes of moving parts.

The waste share is 180 ÷ 480 = 37.5%. The team picks the two biggest items. They stage material at the cell before the shift, which cuts waiting by half, to 35 minutes. They move the gauges to a shadow board at the machine, which cuts walking and searching by 30 minutes, to 20 minutes.

• Time freed: 35 + 30 = 65 minutes per shift.
• New waste: 180 − 65 = 115 minutes, or 115 ÷ 480 = 24%.

If the team uses the freed time for production, value-adding work rises from 200 to 265 minutes, a gain of 65 ÷ 200 = 32.5% more productive time. That does not automatically mean 32.5% more output, because the machine and the downstream steps must keep up. The numbers are assumptions. Observe your own shift.

Common mistakes

• Treating the list as a quiz. Naming the eight wastes is easy. Seeing them at a workstation takes observation.
• Blaming people. Waste is a property of the process. If people feel accused, they will hide it.
• Cutting inventory first. Stock is often a symptom. Remove the cause, or the problem returns.
• Counting only machine waste. Waiting, walking and unused ideas are as costly as scrap, and harder to see.
• Ignoring the eighth waste. If you do not ask the operators, you miss the best source of improvement ideas.
• No follow-up. A list of wastes on a wall changes nothing without owners, dates and a review.

How software can help

A paper map is enough to start. Software helps once many products and steps need data. iFAKT's Polaris VSM provides data-based value stream mapping that models material and information flows collaboratively and makes waste and bottlenecks visible. Whatever tool you use, check its picture against what you see at the gemba, and use the result to choose where to improve first.

Next step

Pick one workstation, watch it for an hour and mark every example of the 8 wastes of lean that you see. Then bring the three most frequent ones to the team and agree on one fix for each.