Knowledge Base

TIMWOODS – The 8 Wastes

4 min read IE validated

In plain English

Waste is anything you spend time or money on that doesn't actually make your product better or serve your customer. TIMWOODS is a simple checklist of the eight kinds of waste that hide in every workplace. Once you can name them, you start seeing them everywhere.

The parts, simply

T — Transport
Moving materials or products further than needed.
I — Inventory
Stock or work-in-progress sitting around, tying up cash and space.
M — Motion
People walking, reaching or searching for things.
W — Waiting
Idle time — people or work waiting on the next step.
O — Overproduction
Making more, or sooner, than the customer needs.
O — Overprocessing
Doing more work than the customer actually values.
D — Defects
Mistakes, rework and scrap.
S — Skills
Not using people's time and talent well.

Why it matters to your business

Most businesses run at 30–60% 'value-adding' time — the rest is waste. Removing waste is the cheapest capacity you'll ever find: no new staff, no new machines, just less time and money leaking out of the day.

Everyday example

A café on a busy morning

Staff walk to the back store for cups every few orders (Motion). Ten coffees get made ahead and go cold when the rush stalls (Overproduction). Customers wait while one person does everything at the till (Waiting). Wrong orders get remade (Defects). None of that is anyone's fault — it's the layout and flow. Fix those and the same team serves more people, calmer.

How SenseFlow does this for you

Upload a photo or sketch and SenseFlow tags every one of these wastes on your floor, ranks them by how much money they cost per year, and tells you which to fix first — in plain English.

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