In Plain Sight: Sources of Wastes ◾ 73
Waste Type 9: Material Underutilization
The last of the nine types of wastes is material underutilization; it refers to
how we use materials in the organization. Every day, we do things in the
organizational structure that create waste in the processes and organization,
such as the following:
e-Mails: I am as guilty of this as anyone else. As humans, we have
a tendency to believe that we might lose something. So, an e-mail
arrives, and we have to rush to make a hard copy of it. I once worked
with an individual who purchased a desktop personal computer (PC),
a laptop, and a personal digital assistant (PDA); he questioned why
he was keeping more paper notes now than he did before these
purchases. This is ...