CONVEYANCE WASTE

Conveyance waste is the movement of products from one location to another. This adds no value to the product and can be very expensive.

Examples:

• Movement of product or materials from one location in a distribution center to another
• Movement of product or materials from China to the United States
• Movement of product or materials from a manufacturing facility to a distribution center

Costs of Conveyance Waste

Conveyance waste is an additional cost that does not add value to the product. Conveyance waste includes additional labor costs, material handling equipment (conveyor belt system), training, safety precautions, and additional space for movement.

Causes of Conveyance Waste

Conveyance waste is attributed to poorly designed facilities, overproduction, and transportation across facilities or continents. Products that have had more units produced than needed have to be stored somewhere in the warehouse or moved to other facilities. Facilities should be designed to limit or eliminate the amount of travel time between processes. If not, employees or machines will have to take time to move those products or material to the next work station.

How to reduce Conveyance Waste

To reduce Conveyance waste you should review the design of your facility layout. Create value stream process maps to determine the metrics from process to process. Work stations should be placed near each other to reduce the need for transporting materials. To reduce overproduction costs, each subsequent process should only pull goods when they are ready (JIT).