In Lean, ‘wasted effort’ is categorised 3 ways:
- ‘Muda’ – effort that does not add value for the customer.
- ‘Mura’ – wasted effort due to variation.
- ‘Muri’ – wasted effort due to overburdening or stressing people, equipment or systems.
Muda is the most talked about form of waste, sub-categorised into 7 further types:
- Transport – excess movement of product.
- Inventory – stocks of goods and raw materials.
- Motion – excess movement of machines or people.
- Waiting.
- Overproduction.
- Over-processing.
- Defects.
Mura is often a result of Muda, and the solution to many of these issues is to standardise processes and relocate resources so they are available ‘just in time’ when and where they are needed.
The problem with this of course, is that whether an activity is Muda depends on where you draw the line around the system. Biomass boilers are eco-efficient, as long as you don’t count the lorries trucking pellets around a country – a clear case of Transport Muda when you look at the bigger system.
What I want to think about today though, is Muri. Wasted effort due to overburdening or stressing the people, equipment or system.
There’s something about Muri that makes it the Cinderella of Lean.
It isn’t glamourous, fixing it doesn’t attract the kind of kudos Muda does. Perhaps it’s just harder to measure.
Whatever the reason it gets left to pick up all the dirty work.
Muri is often caused by too much attention to Muda. Redundancies are stripped out the system, leaving no room for slack. Everything is expected to run at 100% capacity all of the time. People are expected to do more with less, both at work and at home.
The result?
Look around you and what I think you’ll see everywhere a massive case of Muri. People and systems – including our planetary system – stressed and overburdened to breaking point.
As a small business owner, you can’t fix it all. But you can fix it in your business.
What if you let people work a 4-day week? or a 13-day fortnight? Or take a 2 hour lunch break?
What if you put together a flexible plan of working hours for the year that accounted for busy times and quiet times?
What if you set the example yourself by working only your official hours, having your weekend and taking a couple of weeks off every now and then?
You could do all of this, even in a service business, by paying a little attention to Muda and Muri (but not too much):
Start by writing down your Customer Experience Score , so that everyone can play it consistently.
- Automate the parts that are drudgery for humans.
- Leave room for variations that will delight the customer.
- Then give people the responsibility and autonomy to get on with it, at a sensible level of capacity.
You’ll all work less hard for greater rewards.
Discipline makes Daring possible.
