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Basic Lean Manufacturing Principle: Waste Hides in Plain View
The next paragraph underscores the fact that most forms of waste hide
in plain view. People become used to living with the waste, or working
around it, so nobody does anything to remove it. Anybody who learns the
Henry Ford thought process will on the other hand recognize such waste
immediately. The following paragraph embodies the key element of the
scientific aspect of Ford’s universal code.
* * *
The farmer makes too complex an affair out of his daily work. I believe
that the average farmer puts to a really useful purpose only about 5 per
cent of the energy that he spends. If any one ever equipped a factory in the
style, say, the average farm is fitted out, the place would be cluttered with
men. The worst factory in Europe is hardly as bad as the average farm
barn. Power is utilized to the least possible degree. Not only is everything
xlvi • Henry Ford’s Introduction
done by hand, but seldom is a thought given to logical arrangement. A
farmer doing his chores will walk up and down a rickety ladder a dozen
times. He will carry water for years instead of putting in a few lengths of
pipe. His whole idea, when there is extra work to do, is to hire extra men.
He thinks of putting money into improvements as an expense. Farm prod-
ucts at their lowest prices are dearer than they ought to be. Farm profits
at their highest are lower than they ought to be. It is waste motion—waste
effort—that makes farm prices high and profits low.
* * *
The implications of this paragraph cannot possibly be overempha-
sized, and they reinforce statements by other Lean manufacturing, busi-
ness, and even military practitioners:
• Dr. Shigeo Shingo (Robinson, 1990, p. 14) says of waste or muda,
“Unfortunately, real waste lurks in forms that do not look like waste.
Only through careful observation and goal orientation can waste be
identified. We must always keep in mind that the greatest waste is
the waste we don’t see.”
• General Carl von Clausewitz (1976, p. 119) defined friction as “…the
force that makes the apparently easy so difficult. …countless minor
incidents—the kind you can never really foresee—combine to lower
the general level of performance, so that one always falls short of the
intended goal.”
• Tom Peters (1987, p. 323) adds of bringing new products to market,
“The accumulation of little items, each too trivial to trouble the boss
with, is a prime cause of miss-the-market delays.” The key phrase
is “each too trivial to trouble the boss with” because it shows that
people become used to waste and therefore live with it instead of
getting rid of it.
• Taiichi Ohno (1988, p. 59) underscores the need to identify and
remove all forms of waste. “In reality, however, such waste is usually
hidden, making it difficult to eliminate. …To implement the Toyota
production system in your own business, there must be a total
understanding of waste. Unless all sources of waste are detected and
crushed, success will always be just a dream.”
• Halpin (1966, pp. 60–61) adds the statement, “They turned out to
be the little things that get under a worker’s skin but are never quite
important enough to make him come to management for a change.”
Henry Ford’s Introduction • xlvii
The successful implementation of Henry Ford’s universal code there-
fore requires an organization-wide culture of zero tolerance for any form
of waste. Elimination of the waste requires its recognition, and mastery
of this book’s contents equips the reader to recognize waste that would
otherwise hide in plain view.
Ford (1922, p. 329) added that there are exactly three kinds of waste:
time, material, and energy. It is convenient for analytical and workforce
education purposes to expand them into four key performance indica-
tors (KPIs):
1. Waste of the time of things (parts or services, and equipment for
which paying work is available; do not build unsaleable inventory to
keep equipment busy). This includes cycle time; any time the product
or service spends in a non-value-adding activity is waste.
• Ford and Crowther (1926, pp. 112–121) include an entire chapter
called “The Meaning of Time,” which shows that inventory, which
is inversely proportional to cycle time per Little’s Law, is waste.
The chapter also discusses the need for reliable transportation.
2. Waste of the time of people, e.g., due to motion inefficiency.
3. Waste of materials, elimination of which supports ISO 14001.
• Ford and Crowther (1926, pp. 92–100) elaborate on this substan-
tially in a chapter called “Learning from Waste.”
• Norwood (1931, pp. 124–136) features an entire chapter called
“Converting Waste into Millions,” and it addresses the same
subject.
4. Waste of energy, elimination of which supports ISO 50001.
These KPIs encompass completely the Toyota Production System’s
Seven Wastes and also the three key performance indicators of Goldratt’s
Theory of Constraints. Consider, for example, money tied up in inven-
tory, which is a TPS waste and also an undesirable Theory of Constraints
performance indicator. Inventory equals throughput multiplied by cycle
time, so shorter cycle times reduce inventory. Ford’s workers were mean-
while so intolerant of waste of materials that even recyclable metal from
punching and machining operations drew immediate attention.
xlviii • Henry Ford’s Introduction
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