8 Commonly Recognized Categories of Waste

Waste

How This Waste Might Manifest in a Transportation Department

Overproduction

Stops with no students assigned, seats assigned to students who don’t ride, students without bus assignments.

Waiting

Waiting for updated student files for school start. Is there a seamless daily download of information as well as an upload into your SIS? Do you have planned reports to give to the Drivers, Schools, and Administration?

Transport

Inefficient routing of school buses, causing long student rides and increasing operational costs Are we able to plan for the students that will ride the bus? How do we identify eligible students that do not ride?

Motion

Inefficient arrangements of office spaces or distances between bus garages and the office that require people to waste time shuttling between places.

Over Processing

Not having efficient ways to perform tasks like planning routes because phantom stops and students are included, or because tasks are re-executed due to inefficient process sequencing.

Inventory

Unused seats (over and above the ones planned for students who don’t ride); underutilized vehicles (e.g., single-tiered schedules).

Defects

Mistakes.

Misused/Unused Human Potential

Office staff (dispatchers, routers, etc.) who are also required to drive buses, personnel whose time is not efficiently used because of the lack of training or tools, or because they are performing work that could better be contributed or performed by another part of the organization.