Muda - Mura - Muri

When companies are looking for ways to reduce waste, theye will eventually find the Toyota Production System (TPS) and the so called "7 wastes" (I think we all heard/read enough about that^^).

The three key elements of the TPS are Muda, Mura and Muri. A quick wikipedia research helps to understand these terms, if you are not fluent in japanese.

Muda (無駄) is a Japanese word meaning "futility; uselessness; idleness; superfluity; waste; wastage; wastefulness"


 Mura (斑) is a Japanese word meaning "unevenness; irregularity; lack of uniformity; nonuniformity; inequality"

 Muri (無理) is a Japanese word meaning "unreasonableness; impossible; beyond one's power; too difficult; by force; perforce; forcibly; compulsorily; excessiveness; immoderation"

Or, if you are more a picture-kind-of-person...

I think its not very difficult to understand these concepts if you take a little time to think about it. But it is in my opinion essential to know about them for all of us. Since we all studied in Japan, and all of us are "somehow" interested in making the world a little better, we should keep these concepts in mind when doing our future job, whatever it might be. This will not only help to increase the profitability of the company, but also to decrease the produced waste in many ways, which is a benefit for all actors in the value system.

Further readings & Sources:
http://deejaygraham.github.io/2014/11/24/muda-muri-mura-so-what/
http://leanmanufacturingtools.org/71/muda-mura-and-muri-lean-manufacturing-wastes/
http://www.shmula.com/about-peter-abilla/what-is-mura-muri-muda/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muri_%28Japanese_term%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mura_%28Japanese_term%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muda_%28Japanese_term%29