5S Concept: Muda (無駄), Muri (無理) and Mura (斑)

Added value can be defined as products, services, processes and activities, which generate a certain value to the organization and enterprise. Value-added must be regarded from the customer viewpoint and is everything for which the customer is willing to pay for. It is important that value-added is recognized and perceived as value by the client (Bertagnolli, 2020). Many studies have shown that we only add value to a product for less than 5–15% of the time, and the rest of the time is wasted (Helmold & Terry, 2021). The opposite is non-adding value or waste. Waste (Japanese: Muda, 無駄) is anything that adds cost or time without adding any value, or any activity that does not satisfy any of the above conditions of value-added is a waste or a non-value-adding activity in a process. The focus in operations management must therefore be on eliminating such activities like waiting time or rework (Liker, 2004). Enterprise must target value-added processes and eliminate or reduce waste, whereby waste can be visible (obvious) or invisible (hidden), as shown in Fig. 8.1 (Lehmann, 2021). The main idea of lean management is about highlighting the things that add value by reducing or eliminating everything else (waste) (Sahoo, 2019). As a proven consequence, when you eliminate waste, the quality of products improves, while production time and costs are reduced. Figure 8.2 illustrate that waste must be ideally eliminated or reduced.