{"id":974,"date":"2018-10-19T08:00:04","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T06:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getnave.com\/blog\/?p=974"},"modified":"2023-03-15T22:04:06","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T20:04:06","slug":"lean-manufacturing-waste-mura","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getnave.com\/blog\/lean-manufacturing-waste-mura\/","title":{"rendered":"Lean Manufacturing Wastes: Mura"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In our previous article, Lean Manufacturing Wastes: Muda<\/a>, we began to explore the concept of waste and how to reduce it. Wastes in your process add extra costs, either to your customers or to your business. Reducing waste is the most essential step towards developing a smoother and more efficient process.<\/p>\n

The 7 Mudas (Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Overproduction, Overprocessing and Defects) are often highly visible in your process and easy to single out. Many businesses reduce Muda, see some benefits, and stop there. However, the Lean Manufacturing methodology identifies two more causes of waste: Mura (unevenness) and Muri<\/a> (overburden). In this article, we\u2019ll take a look at the second waste, Mura.<\/p>\n

What is Mura?<\/h2>\n

Mura is the Japanese word for \u201cunevenness, irregularity, lack of uniformity\u201d. It describes \u201cfeast and famine\u201d cycles of work when some periods are significantly busier than others. It is a barrier to flow.<\/p>\n

\"Kanban<\/a><\/p>\n

Frantic work as deadlines approach, and then periods with not enough to do \u2013 sounds familiar? Mura directly leads to the other two wastes, Muri and Muda, alternating periods of overburden with periods of waiting and underutilization. Reducing or eliminating Mura leads to a smoother, more consistent and more predictable workflow, tackling the other wastes at their source.<\/p>\n

Mura in knowledge work<\/h2>\n

The concept of Mura comes from the Toyota Production System, the historical ancestor<\/a> of the Lean Manufacturing methodology and Kanban. Originally, it was primarily used to describe unevenness in a factory or manufacturing environment \u2013 unevenness in customer demand for a product, large batch production causing inventory swings, uneven production speeds causing a lack of synchronization between processes. However, knowledge and service work still suffer from this waste. Let’s take a look at a few examples of Mura in knowledge environment:<\/p>\n