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Waste walk checklist (TIMWOODS)
A waste walk is a short, planned walk through one process with a single purpose: to see and write down waste. TIMWOODS is one way to remember the eight wastes: transport, inventory, motion, waiting, overproduction, over-processing, defects and skills (people's knowledge and ideas left unused). Page 1 of this checklist has four concrete things to look for under each waste, 32 in all, with a box to tick when you see one, where it was and a rough size in minutes, metres or pieces. Page 2 is for the debrief straight after the walk: a count by waste, a findings log with the idea to remove each one, dot votes, an owner and a due date. The Excel version has the same checklist, a findings log that ranks findings by votes and flags late actions, and a summary by waste with a chart.
Free to use: print it, copy it and edit it for your team. Enter your name and work email once to download.
When to use it
When to use a waste walk checklist
- To pick targets at the start of a kaizen event, from what the team can see.
- When teaching the eight wastes: an hour on the floor teaches more than a slide.
- On a regular round of one process, for example each quarter with a different group.
- When a line feels slow or crowded but nobody can say why.
How to fill it in
- 1
Pick one process and a small group
One process, not the whole plant. Three to six people, mixed: an operator, a supervisor, someone from another area, someone from the office.
- 2
Brief the eight wastes
Ten minutes before you leave the room. One example of each waste from your own plant works better than a definition.
- 3
Walk for 45 to 60 minutes
Stand at each station for at least one full cycle. Tick what you see, write where it is and a rough size. Do not fix anything on the walk.
- 4
Ask the people doing the work
What slows you down? What do you walk to fetch? Their answers fill the motion, waiting and skills rows faster than watching.
- 5
Debrief at the board
One row per finding on page 2, merge duplicates, then three dot votes each. Pick the top two or three.
- 6
Give the top findings an owner and a date
Small fixes go to the area team. Bigger ones become kaizen projects. Keep the rest as a backlog and look at it again on the next walk.
What's on the walk
The 32 things to look for on the waste walk checklist
Four under each of the eight wastes, in TIMWOODS order. On the sheet each one has a box to tick when you see it, where it was and a rough size; add the ones that fit your own process.
Transport
Material moved further or more often than the work needs
- 1Material put down and picked up again between two steps
- 2Long forklift, cart or tugger trips between steps that could sit closer
- 3Parts parked in a temporary spot on the way to where they are used
- 4Material sent to another building, floor or area and back
Inventory
More material than the next step needs right now
- 5WIP piled between steps with no limit marked, or over the limit
- 6More than a few days of raw material or bought parts at the line
- 7Finished goods waiting with no ship date
- 8Obsolete, damaged or unlabelled stock in the area
Motion
People moving more than the job needs
- 9Operators leaving the station for parts, tools or paperwork
- 10Reaching, bending, twisting, or lifting above the shoulder or below the knee
- 11Searching for tools, gauges, parts or information
- 12Turning or re-gripping a part more often than the job needs
Waiting
People or machines idle
- 13Operators watching a machine run its cycle
- 14People or machines stopped for material, a forklift, a setter or a quality sign-off
- 15Work held for a drawing, an instruction or a decision
- 16One station busy while the next one waits for it
Overproduction
Making more, or sooner, than the next step needs
- 17Running ahead of the schedule or of what the next step asks for
- 18Batches bigger than the order, the kanban or the container
- 19Parts made to keep a machine or a person busy
- 20Labels, kits or paperwork prepared long before they are used
Over-processing
Work the customer does not pay for
- 21Finishes, tolerances or cosmetic steps beyond what the customer asks for
- 22Checks, counts or signatures done twice
- 23The same data written on paper and typed into a system
- 24Deburring, cleaning or touch-up added to make up for an earlier step
Defects
Scrap, rework and the checking that catches them
- 25Scrap bins, rework benches or parts on hold in the area
- 26Sorting or 100% inspection to catch bad parts
- 27Wrong part, wrong revision or missing parts in kits
- 28Rework or repairs done at the station without being recorded
Skills
People's knowledge and ideas not used
- 29Skilled people doing routine handling or paperwork
- 30Operators' ideas never asked for, or asked for and never answered
- 31Workarounds everyone knows about that nobody has reported
- 32Nobody trained to cover the next station when someone is out
A filled-in example
Illustrative, not a benchmarkAn example: a 50-minute walk on a packing line by four people (illustrative).
- 14 findings: transport 2, inventory 3, motion 3, waiting 2, overproduction 1, over-processing 1, defects 1, skills 1.
- Motion: the packer walks 18 m to the carton stack about 30 times a shift, roughly 540 m a shift.
- Waiting: the case sealer jammed three times in the 50 minutes and the operator waited 2 to 4 minutes each time for the line lead.
- Skills: the senior packer has a fix for the sealer jam that nobody had written down. Overproduction: labels for the whole day printed at the start of the shift, 120 of them scrapped at a changeover.
The dot vote picked three: move the carton stack to the point of use, write the sealer fix into a one-point lesson and adjust the guide, and print labels per order. All three had an owner and a date before the group left the board, and the other 11 findings went on the backlog.
Common mistakes
Walking the whole plant
Thirty findings across ten areas get nothing fixed. One process, looked at properly, gives a short list someone owns.
Writing what you know instead of what you saw
'Too much inventory' is an opinion. 'Five pallets of cartons at the line, about two days' is a finding.
Fixing things during the walk
Fixing one thing stops you seeing the next twenty. Note it and keep walking.
Blaming the person at the station
People work around the process they are given. Write the waste against the process, or nobody will talk to you on the next walk.
No size on the findings
Without minutes, metres or pieces the vote is a popularity contest. A rough number is enough.
Download the template
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Run this template in LeanSuite
In LeanSuite's Idea Management, waste hunts log each opportunity by type of waste and size, and the best ones are approved into projects.
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Waste walk checklist (TIMWOODS): common questions
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