Comments on: The Forgotten M’s

By: 2 Ways to Handle Varying Inventory Levels When Creating Value Stream Maps | Lean Six Sigma Academy

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:50:11 +0000

[...] you’re likely dealing with severe case of mura (unevenness) due to a lack of heijunka (production [...]

By: Calculating Optimal Crew Size in Mixed Model Cells | Lean Six Sigma Academy

Calculating Optimal Crew Size in Mixed Model Cells | Lean Six Sigma Academy — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:20:59 +0000

[...] Since the team is not working with an even number of units averaging is the wrong thing to do, in my opinion. Asking these two people to succeed (without overtime) is the perfect example of muri. [...]

By: Why Do Employees Underperform | Lean Six Sigma Academy

Why Do Employees Underperform | Lean Six Sigma Academy — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:08:16 +0000

[...] Muri means to overburden equipment or operators. In many cases, muri can be avoided by the implementation of some basic forms of standard work. [...]

By: Ron Pereira

Ron Pereira — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:41:10 +0000

Thanks for the comment DMR Panda!

By: DMR Panda

DMR Panda — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 12:04:32 +0000

Great example and explanation.

Donkey is the result of OVERBURDON – MURI.

By: Ron Pereira

Ron Pereira — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 02:57:00 +0000

As always, excellent examples Jon. Thanks for checking in!

Ron

By: Jon Miller

Jon Miller — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 19:48:00 +0000

Good post.

It's worth mentioning the cause and effect relationship of these three. When there is mura (variability or unevenness) you do muri (overburden) causing muda (waste).

A simple example is when you customer demand varies (mura), and you try to meet this customer demand too closely even though your system is not set up to do this (muri), and you either have idle capacity or excessive inventory (muda).

It's easy to come up with other examples.

This is highly relevant to the theme of this blog, as it suggests that the source of waste (muda) is variability (mura) and our effort to forcibly close the gap (muri) between what is and what we want it to be.

So maybe Six Sigma is the answer after all...