Library skill · Thinkers' principles
Ohno-style seven wastes review
Walks one process step by step, sorts it into value-creating work, incidental work and Taiichi Ohno's seven wastes, ranks the wastes and proposes what to remove first. Use it when A process is slow or expensive and you want to know where the time goes.
Not affiliated with or endorsed by Taiichi Ohno or their companies. About these principles: Taiichi Ohno's ideas, explained.
AI skill
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Works in Claude, ChatGPT, and coding agents. On Team and Business, this library skill in your pod updates itself when we improve it.
When to use it
- A process is slow or expensive and you want to know where the time goes
- Before automating a process, so you don't automate waste
What you give it
- The process as really done, trigger to end
- Work and wait time per step
- What the customer or next step needs
- Defect and rework counts
What you get
A step table labelled by work type and waste type, the wastes ranked by size, kaizen steps that remove the top three, and one first test.
How it works
- Draw the process
- Label every step (principle 3)
- Name the waste type (principle 1)
- Look for overproduction first (principle 2)
- Measure the size
- Propose kaizen steps (principle 4)
- Pick a first test
Example
What you give it
Our quote process at a printing company: sales takes the request by email (10 min), types it into the estimating sheet (15 min), waits for the estimator (usually 1 day), estimator prices it (20 min), sales re-types it into a quote template (15 min), manager approves (waits half a day, 2 min), sales sends it. About 1 in 5 quotes goes back for corrections. We also price every option for every job in case they ask. 60 quotes a week.
What you get back (the start of it)
These are principles Taiichi Ohno described publicly. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Taiichi Ohno or their companies. The office translations of the wastes are our adaptation.
Summary
Lead time about 1.5 working days; working time about 62 minutes. Biggest waste: waiting for the estimator. Overproduction: pricing every option in case it is asked for. First test: price only the options the customer requested, for one week.
The process
| # | Step | Who | Work time | Wait before | Label | Waste type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Take the request by email | Sales | 10 min | - | Value-creating | - |
| 2 | Type it into the estimating sheet | Sales | 15 min | - | Waste | Conveyance (re-keying between tools) |
| 3 | Estimator prices the job | Estimator | 20 min | 1 day | Value-creating | Waiting (the day before it) |
| 4 | Price every option, asked or not | Estimator | [check: minutes] | - | Waste | Overproduction |
| 5 | Re-type into the quote template | Sales | 15 min | - | Waste | Conveyance |
| 6 | Manager approves | Manager | 2 min | half a day | Incidental | Waiting |
| 7 | Corrections on 1 in 5 quotes | Sales, estimator | [check] | - | Waste | Correction |
The rest of this output, the full steps and the checks the AI runs before it answers are in your pod once you add the skill.
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Changelog
- v1.0.1 · · Example output now opens with the attribution and not-affiliated lines, as the skill's own checks require.
- v1.0.0 · · First release.
Sources
- 7 Wastes - Lean Enterprise Institute lexicon (read 2026-11-04)
- Toyota Production System - Toyota Motor Corporation (read 2026-11-04)