Post by LeanSuite

Every CI team can spot the 8 wastes on the floor in seconds. Far fewer turn that same lens on their own program. The improvement function quietly collects the exact eight it exists to remove: Defects: fixes that fail and reopen next quarter. Overproduction: more initiatives than the floor can absorb. Waiting: ideas parked behind a sign-off or a budget. Non-utilized talent: the floor holds the best ideas, and gets asked last. Transportation: every handoff adds delay, not value. Inventory: a backlog of ideas nobody will start. Motion: chasing updates and hunting data across spreadsheets. Excess processing: a 30-slide deck for a one-page problem. None of it looks like waste. It looks like being busy. That is exactly why it survives, and why the floor slowly stops bringing ideas to a team that never closes the loop. A simple test: open your idea backlog and count what actually shipped this quarter. The gap is your waste. In our experience, the teams that stay lean audit their own program as hard as they audit the floor. Which of the eight is quietly eating the most of your week?