Lost opportunities    Sales, profits, or other opportunities lost due to ineffectiveness or working on the wrong things often overshadow all other wastes.  A day invested to ensure you are offering the right products at competitive prices will usually do more to strengthen your business than a day spent cutting costs.

Overproduction      Producing something before the customer wants it is often the next largest waste.  It sets up conditions that cause many of the other wastes and may result in obsolete products.

 Waiting   People often lose time when waiting for something to happen.  Examples would be when something goes wrong upstream, when there are bottlenecks in a process, or when people wait for a piece of equipment to finish its task.

Transportation   Excess movement of an item or material that supports the production of a good or service is waste.  Causes include double handling associated with storage, as well as poor layouts, scheduling, coordination, housekeeping, or organization.

 Processing   Even work that is usually considered “value-added” may contain waste.  Although processing usually represents a fraction of the total cost, many make the mistake of focusing on this area first.

Inventory   Too much inventory complicates production, absorbs valuable resources, hides real problems, and extends deliveries.  In looking for waste we need to think beyond the traditional definition of inventory and include all of the material or work required to produce any product or service.

Motion   People often go through motions that do not add value.  Workspace disorganization, poor factory or office layouts, and bad habits can accentuate this waste.

 Product defects   Defects found anywhere in the process disrupt flow, cause delays, add cost, and reduce capacity.  Worse yet, defects found by the customer damage loyalty.