The Mighty WOMBAT: A Simple Approach to Finding Muda

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The wombat is a muscular Australian marsupial that burrows and eats plants. It's also an acronym that stands for Waste Of Money, Brains And Time.

The language of Lean Six Sigma includes many Japanese words, and learning these can inhibit the understanding of this process improvement methodology for native English speakers. The Japanese words may be misunderstood and misapplied. In the case of Kaizen Blitz, formed by using the Japanese word Kaizen (continuous incremental improvement gained from reflection and understanding) with the German word Blitz (lightning), an oxymoron is created. Despite the contradiction of meaning in this term, companies still pay for consultants to deliver Kaizen Blitz and then question why the process improvements gained are neither sustainable nor effective.

When I train and consult people in Lean Six Sigma, I use English terms wherever possible. Concepts are quicker to understand and it avoids creating barriers between people who know the Japanese terms and those who don't. Adding unnecessary complication in itself creates process waste.

The Need to Identify Waste for Effective Process Improvement

Frontline workers need to quickly understand and apply Lean process improvement to their day-to-day activities. As many of these workers are in departments where staffing has already been cut to a minimum, it’s important that any training or process improvement workshops in which they are involved are based on Lean principles. To ensure that resources of time, material, money and intellect are only applied where they add value, we need to identify where they are being wasted. 

By definition, Lean process improvement means reducing the resources consumed from receipt of an order to delivery of the product or service to a customer.  

The Japanese word Muda defines seven categories of waste, which are easily remembered with the acronym TIM WOOD.

Transportation
Inventory
Motion

Waiting
Overproduction
Over processing
Defects

However, when starting process improvement it’s more important to identity waste in general than to categorize it. Resources are the money consumed in financial and material resources, the waiting time between or during process operation and the waste of intellect and knowledge required to make poorly designed or uncontrolled processes work. Put simply, these things are the WOMBATs.

Using WOMBAT

This is how I used WOMBAT in recent process review and mapping sessions for a local government client:

• Every process mapping session had four to six attendees including management and front-line staff. Every session started with a WOMBAT brainstorming to identify the issues of concern to each attendee.
• Participants were given a block of yellow 3”x5” sticky notes and a black marker pen (to ensure legibility when later photographed with a digital camera).
• WOMBATs were then described as those activities and issues that waste time, cause frustration or seem pointless, and that removing them would make processes faster, cheaper and more reliable.
• Participants were asked to write their known WOMBATs in capital letters, one per sticky note. They were asked to work in silence for 10 minutes and not to question or comment on what other people were writing.
• As sticky notes were completed I put them on the wall in random order.
• As the rate of contributions declined, usually after five to 10 minutes, participants were asked to go and look at the WOMBATs already posted as it might prompt more ideas of their own.
• At the end of the WOMBAT writing, participants were asked to work together on the task of arranging the sticky notes into affinity groups, assigning titles to each. 

As well as capturing ideas, this activity acted as an ice breaker and identified issues to be addressed in the AS IS and TO BE process mapping that followed. Sessions were typically one to two hours in duration depending on the complexity of the services under review. When WOMBATs affected more than one person, this was shown by duplicates and was a quick way to establish their priority.

 For many participants, this was the first time that they had been asked to identify the issues that got in the way of them doing their jobs effectively. The range of WOMBATS identified by each person ranged from three to 12.
 
Once people actively start looking for WOMBATs, they become better at finding them. The humorous term WOMBAT stimulates them to look at issues more creatively. Once identified, WOMBATs can be swiftly eliminated and more WOMBATs will be discovered as people see the benefits of removing waste from processes.
 
For quick and simple identification of process waste, just find your WOMBATs!

References:

Team Building Humor Strengthens a Team Identity or Spirit, Paul McGhee, PhD, http://www.laughterremedy.com/  accessed 10.02.09

KAIZEN BLITZ, tackling symptoms not causes, Stuart Corrigan, Vanguard Scotland  http://www.systemsthinking.co.uk/6-25.asp accessed 10.02.09

Contributor: Brian Hunt

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Brian Hunt is a UK-based freelance consultant who specializes in simplifying the language and concepts within process improvement to make them accessible to the widest range of people in an organization. He passionately believes that sustainable and effective process improvement has to be driven by the frontline or factory floor workers, and the manager's role should be to enable, empower and coach. Hunt is currently applying these principles within local government projects.

Further details can be found at http://www.brianhunt.co.uk/. Hunt can also be contacted though this website or through LinkedIn.com.

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Report Abuse   citssumiit 06/02/2010 11:47:13 AM EDT Its really an excellent article ... i like it Replies (0) Post a reply Sign in or Sign up to post a comment

Report Abuse   orgdocent1 03/31/2010 5:58:59 PM EDT Brian: Thanks for the training tip. I've been a long time proponent of walk-around management which helps me discover what is wrong with the shop along with the (manager in tow). A problem in so much leadership was generated by that One Minute Manager stuff; and I got thrown out one of Master's classes when I asked what a IMM made and was questioned "you mean money? creates? endorses? "No:, I responded, "I think the 1MM makes a 50 second employee!" That old story is delivered as I start talking on how we are going to examine the plant, give me a clear view of the possible/probably sticky points in manufacturing; delivery; process; dead time; empty spot in assembly or missing equipment. "Bring your stickies or 3x5 and we'll display them on the plant process chart later." We often restructure the contract on that walk as the ideas start to flow when one department head sees problems in another's shop with a new light! Generally works for me; that quick tour give me a sense of the spaces, a pre-check of the competency of the supes; some times the boss's 1st exposure this quarter. HINT: If boss doesn't feel comfortable touring spaces AVOID the company lunch room s/he won't like what they discover on the Bulletin Boards!! RM@ orgdocent1 Replies (0) Post a reply Sign in or Sign up to post a comment

Report Abuse   zsalam 03/25/2010 1:08:41 PM EDT Btw Ellen, I find the key in initial/early workshops isn't really to flush out root causes of waste (TIMWOOD), rather I find what works for me is to identify non-value-add activity and the effects/symptoms/tell tale signs of waste (lead times, cycle times, rework, Cust. disatisfaction, frustration, fire-fighting, and non-value added work being present). then I find it useful to move to the next bit which is understanding the root causes of these - which is ultimately your lead into TIMWOOD and from there on into elimination. Replies (0) Post a reply Sign in or Sign up to post a comment

Report Abuse   zsalam 03/25/2010 1:00:14 PM EDT Hi Brian, Yes I quite agree with this type of "lite" approach esp. in orgs like local govt. In my own experience, to train up staff completely unfamiliar with Lean and Six Sigma, I took a bunch of managers and we did real role play scenarios that represented real end-to-end process flows i.e. how the Customer flowed through the process. We did several scenarios. It was great fun mimicking the various scenarios which naturally flushed out issues. i got them to map the process on the wall and the associated issues, simultaneously collecting time, quality, volume data as went along - it was very natural and easy as I just asked them the question as we carried out the scenario - how long does this take (delay), how much time to work on (process time). This got me the initial value stream up, which I easily contributed through rigorous data collection after. Zahid www.linkedin.com/in/zahidsalam Replies (0) Post a reply Sign in or Sign up to post a comment

Report Abuse   EllenS 03/18/2010 10:25:27 AM EDT Good article. I'm facilitating a process mapping workshop next week and can see ral potential in introducing WOMBAT. I've worried in the past how well people identify with the TIM WOOD categories where as the WOMBAT wastes are something most folks should already have an opinion about or be able to spot readily. Nice and simple. Replies (0) Post a reply Sign in or Sign up to post a comment

Report Abuse   Michael McLean 03/16/2010 6:32:55 PM EDT Nice WOMBAT. Some others use DOWNTIME for the 8 Wastes (yes Toyota updated it post a review of their Productivity an Work Simplification programs awahile ago). Jack Welch used C.R.A.P. extensively in GE's productivity Work Out programs and then migrated to their Six Sigma program. KAIZEN according to Imai is a 'Process-oriented' acitivity and in Japanese means Change - Good. Once agin just loved the WOMBAT and goes along with what Dr Ishikwa saids that we 'should adapt then adopt these 7 Tools' to suit you culture and WOMBAT certianly does. Replies (0) Post a reply Sign in or Sign up to post a comment

Report Abuse   jfedora@mbym.com 03/16/2010 5:36:10 PM EDT I absolutely loved this article. I was thinking about this exact issue after observing a consultant lead a team through a discovery of TIMWOOD exercise and thinking it was way to complicated for an audience new to Lean. I now have a proven approach that will save me the time of working one up myself. Thanks! Replies (0) Post a reply Sign in or Sign up to post a comment