The Two Great Wastes in Organizations

Hal Macomber1 & Gregory Howell2

1Principal, Lean Project Consulting, 36 Kirkland Drive, Andover, MA 01810. 978/470-8994. [email protected].
2Managing Director. Lean Construction Institute, Box 1003, Ketchum, ID 83340. 208/726-9989. [email protected].

Abstract

The Toyota Production System is so successful that people look for ways to apply the lean production ideas and methods in organization settings. One of those ways is the force-fitting of Engineer Taiichi Ohno's seven wastes to organizations and projects. While organizations and projects manipulate materiel, they are better characterized by their actions of accomplishing something together - coordinating action, learning, and innovating. The seven wastes don't address those actions. Attempts to add to the seven wastes have to date broken the Ohno taxonomy. The authors propose a novel set of distinctions on the principal sources ofwaste in organizational settings.

Keywords

Leadership, project management, and lean construction.

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Reference

Macomber, H. & Howell, G. 2004. The Two Great Wastes in Organizations, 12th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction , -. doi.org/

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