The 8 Wastes of Fat Manufacturing
Lean manufacturing focuses effort on seeking out and eliminating waste in all its forms, whereas Fat Manufacturing endeavours to exploit it fully, as described below:
1. Transport
Ensure what you need to do the job is at the other end of the factory, or perhaps even hidden or lost.
2. Inventory
Ensure that inventory is maximized so that as much money as possible is tied up in raw material, work in progress or finished goods that can fill a huge warehouse or a space on the floor.
3. Motion
Maximize bending, repetitive strain type movements and manual lifting of heavy objects from high places.
4. Waiting
Some examples could be waiting for supplier deliveries, for someone to finish their tea break, for people to turn up to meetings, or for the next shift to set-up the next job so that they avoid doing this themselves.
5. Over-Processing
Over-engineer designs and make work as unnecessarily complicated as possible to ensure confusion of workforce. This also serves to make engineers feel important and ensure that their specialist knowledge is always needed.
6. Over-Production
Ensure machines are kept running, even if they are making poor quality or something that will be put into storage for several months to several years.
7. Defects
Defects are to be expected given the large process variation (see “One Sigma“) and should be allowed to pass undetected until the end of the process in order to create a constant rework loop and ensure the workforce or expensive machinery is kept busy on something. If a defect does slip through the net this can enable you to find out what you can get away with. Items such as sandwiches, tools, jewelry or even trapped wildlife sent by mistake in the product are not considered as defects. But neither should they be charged extra for.
8. Skills
Ensure new employees are dropped into the deep end without adequate training and then delegated to without support. Ensure that highest skilled employees are used with a minimum of flexibility and on a non-bottleneck resource.
