What is Muda, Mura and Muri?

Do you know what waste affects your company’s efficiency, service quality, and workflow? You see, most employers focus on the things that make them more productive but ignore those that make them struggle. The acronym 3M refers to the waste categories that Taiichi Ohno, the illustrious founder of the Toyota Production System, described as Muda (wasteful), Mura (uneven), and Muri (overburden). However, you can discard these wastes by using a lean approach in any manufacturing company, not to mention the hiring procedure.

Though Lean recruitment is still not well adopted in many organizations, it is a crucial strategy to be initiated into the hiring process. Under this Lean manufacturing, four main stages encourage ongoing step-by-step development. They include;

• Waste elimination
• Recognizing diversity in recruitment
• Incorporation of technology
• Valuing the hiring managers

Muda Meaning

Muda refers to wastefulness, futility, and uselessness. It entails activities that do not bring value to the business, making it a liability for your business or workers. There are two types of Muda;

Muda Type 1

This type comprises processes that are required for the end customer but don’t bring value. For instance, inspecting and taking safety precautions do not bring value to the end product but are necessary to ensure the customer’s product is safe.

Muda Type 2

These activities don’t bring value to the customer, although they are in the process. Therefore, the activities are useless and need not be part of the industrial processes. There are seven classic waste under type 2 Muda, which are;

• Transportation:  Involves excessive movement of products from one point to another.
• Inventory: Storing excessively or too few products.
• Motion: Unnecessary movements by machines and workers when creating a product.
• Waiting: Workers and machines stay idle due to unreliable project processes.
• Overproduction: The number of products outnumber the consumer’s needs.
• Overprocessing: More time spent on creating product than required.
• Defects: Problems that result in a product or service falling short of client expectations. 

The Muda wastes are the most straightforward to comprehend and were typically seen in industrial workshops. Later, underutilization of skills, another type 2 Muda waste, was added to the list. When an employee’s abilities and professionalism don’t benefit their life and the business, this waste is also called the “wastage of human talent.”

Mura Meaning

Mura refers to inconsistent and uneven operation processes, which are the issues that lead to the Muda wastes listed above. Mura often occur when a company has minimal, lax, or, in certain circumstances, no guiding norms controlling the production of goods or services. This waste may lead to problems including excessive processing, excessive production, and defective products.

For instance, during assembly on a production line, products must move through several workstations. When one station’s capacity exceeds that of the other stations, waste builds up in the form of excess production and waiting. However, with a Lean manufacturing system, the process distributes the task evenly, so there is no waste accumulation or inequity.

To avoid Mura, companies should incorporate Just-In-Time Kanban tools and other strategies that minimize excessive production and inventory. Just-In-Time systems’ main goal is to deliver and produce the right amount, the right part, and the expected duration.

Muri Meaning

This waste means overburden, excessiveness, and unreasonable use of human power and machines to perform beyond their capacity for a longer time. An example is loading a vehicle with goods more than its limits or switching to unreasonably using machines. After some time of experiencing Muri in an organization, the employees may start absenteeism and lack self-drive when performing their roles. In addition, your machines may start breaking down due to excessive tasks.

A Muda, Mura, Muri example is, let’s say that you have eight tones of products you want to transport to a client.

1st option: You can decide to bundle up all the eight tones in one truck and transport them. Unfortunately, this will be muri because you will be overburdening the vehicle that can only carry four tons of product, leading to a breakdown.

2nd option: Make two trips, one carrying five tones and another three tones, but this will be Mura because of the unevenness of the products arriving to the customer in turns. The process will also be Muri because you will still overburden one truck with products, and Muda as well because the unevenness will cause the waste of waiting by the customer.

3rd option: Make three trips with two trucks carrying three tones each and the last one having two tons. This waste will be Muda because the vehicle will be taking less of its capacity.

Therefore, to eliminate Muda, Mura, and Muri in your operation, bundle each truck with four tones which is the exact carrying capacity and make only two trips.

Conclusion

Organizations need to eliminate the Muda, Mura, and Muri wastes to have a progressive business using a lean manufacturing strategy. The Muda, Mura, Muri example showed us how each could lead to the other, and the process of elimination can be challenging without a comprehensive Lean system. Therefore, incorporate Lean tools and techniques into your manufacturing and recruitment strategies to get the best results in business.