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The Eight Wastes poster
DOWNTIME - learn to see what costs you.
Waste is everything the customer would not pay for. Eight kinds, one mnemonic. Once you can name them, you cannot stop seeing them - and what you can see, you can log and kill.
Download the The Eight Wastes poster · PDF · 385 KB
Free to download, print and use in your own workplace. Please don't resell them or strip the credit. © 2026 Plapl Games.
The four steps on the poster
- Name itEight letters, eight wastes
- See itWalk the floor with the list
- Log itType, place, severity - ten seconds
- Rank itThe Pareto shows the worst first
Also on the poster
- D-O-W-NDefects. Overproduction. Waiting. Non-utilised talent.
- T-I-M-ETransportation. Inventory. Motion. Extra-processing.
- Log what you seeLog honestly. A high-severity log moves the ranking more than a low one - the Pareto weighs how bad, not just how often.
- Kill the biggestThe Pareto ranks what keeps coming back. Start at the top.
The line to remember
The worst waste is the one nobody has named yet.
In the app
The poster comes from Lean Day Toolkit, where it opens from Floor → Log waste, next to the tool it describes. Get the app: App Store · Google Play · Amazon Appstore for Fire tablets.
Read more: The 8 wastes of lean (DOWNTIME), with examples.