1.

Waste of overproduction
Purchasing items before they are needed
Executing the service activity before the next person is ready for it for instance,
processing paperwork before the next person is ready for it
2. Waste of motion
A layout of facility that promotes un-necessary movement of employees such as to discuss with
other employees
Scattered departments in an organisation
Walking to/from copier, central filing, fax machine
3. Waste of inventory
Printed documents and files more than necessary
Filled in-boxes (electronic and paper)
More stationery than required
More IT equipment than required in a workplace
Documents/records stored beyond retention period
4. Waste of transportation
Excessive e-mail attachments
Multiple handoffs adding little or no value to the overall process
Bureaucratic procedures such as multiple approvals
Files moving from one branch to another
Un-necessary movement of documents between employees
5. Waste of waiting
Customers waiting for the delivery of service
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Employees waiting to receive from others preceding them in supply chain

Services activities waiting to be processed by the person next in supply chain for instance, files
and documents waiting for signatures or approval
New employees awaiting infrastructure/computer
Information technology system downtimes such as intranet, internet, and enterprise
informationsystems downtimes
Time taken to respond to customer queries
6. Waste of underutilized people
More people involved in a job than necessary
Not involving the associates in process improvements
Not leveraging the potential of individuals to the fullest
Not using the creative brainpower of employees
Not giving the right assignment/work
Uneven work distribution/load balancing
7. Waste of defects
Errors made in the execution of service
The end product/service not up to the specifications
Rework on the project
Incorrect data entry8. Waste of over-processing
Redundant steps in a process which produce waste and add little or no value
Multiple inspections in a process the task of one person being checked by others
Overdesigning a product or service for a customer
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Inept design of service delivering processes

Inadequate technology for handling, storing, and archiving information and planning processes
4.1 Management of knowledge
For knowledge-intensive services the management of knowledge is a core requirement for developing
and maintaining competitive advantage. Knowledge management consists of four
interrelated processes: knowledge creation, knowledge storage and retrieval, knowledge transfer and
knowledge integration (Alavi & Leidner, 2001). We will address these four processes next.4.1.1
Knowledge creationThe important insights regarding knowledge creation could be obtained from
Nonaka (1994) and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) who elaborated on various modes of knowledge
generation throughan interplay of explicit and tacit knowledge. The explicit knowledge consists of
knowledge thatcan be codified and is thus capable of being clearly stated. Collective explicit
knowledge residesin operating procedures, documentation, information system, rules, blueprints, etc.
The tacitknowledge, on the other hand, is acquired from experience and learning by doing. It is
difficultto articulate in words. The tacit knowledge is found in organisational routines
4.2 Coordination of activities
In knowledge-intensive services, the processes are extensively inter-related. An importantrequirement
in such services is the use of multidisciplinary expertise and effective coordinationamong individuals.
The use of multiple handoffs and requirement for coordination also posescertain challenges. Firstly, the
involvement of multiple handoffs may create problems at eachinterface. In an ideal situation the
processes pass on from one employee to another in acontinuous and non-interrupting manner. However
in practice variations from the standard timeare inevitable. Such variations in the processing time
interrupt the whole value chain and thus are potential sources of waste such as waste of overprocessing, underutilization, waiting, and wasteof over-production. These wastes can be overcome, to
some extent, through enhanced communication such as regular meetings and effective capacity
planning. But this brings inother types of waste, such as waste of moving and underutilization, as noted
earlier. In suchcases, a trade-off between different types of wastes may be inevitable
4.3 Standardizing customized services
The company runs projects of various types. The project proposals are sent to potential as well
asexisting customers. Each proposal is different and is unique to requirements of customers. Inorder to
make project proposal more professional and appealing, participation of multipleemployees is
encouraged. This is a source of waste since it involves more employees thannecessary as well as
underutilization of employees who could be trained to do it
more professionally on their own. Thus, while there may be multiple methods to make this processlean;
the current process of proposal preparation is a potential source of waste. In addition, the project
specifications and other technical and administrative communication withexternal parties need to be
professional and accurate. Again using multiple individuals promotesan organisational culture where
employees believe that their work would be checked by othersand thus relieves responsibility from
them to some extent. One employee pointed out
I am glad that my documents are checked by another person.
4.4 Developing systematic continuous improvement
The service companies usually work under time pressures. Delivering the service and completingthe
project in time is of utmost importance for the Houseconsult. Time pressures are further accentuated in
the presence of next projects in line. The need for a systematic review of thefinished projects, lessons
learned from completed projects, and their integration into knowledgesources of the company was
often ignored in such pressures. The lessons learned from
previous projects and their integration into main sources of knowledge remain a challenge for thecomp
any. As such it carries the risk of not learning from previous mistakes and experiences and thus
repeating same mistakes again and again. This is a potential source of waste generation.

4.5 Managing external parties

Knowledge-intensive services are characterized by their intangibility, hence are open for discussion
with customers and suppliers. It is often difficult to exactly specify the services to bedelivered
beforehand, due to the customers' specific requirements. Often the actual service isshaped during
interaction between customer and service provider. This specific character of knowledge-intensive
services is prone to several types of wastes. For instance, in our research acustomer requested services
from a supplier of his choice regarding paint and maintenance. Thiswas not discussed beforehand. This
led to frequent communication between the company, thecustomer and the suppliers on specifications,
offers and orders. These activities were not budgeted, nor billed to the customer, hence contributing to
financial loss. Spending more
time in preparation of the offer and determining the conditions of accepting the offer, could have preve
nted wastes of waiting and wastes of motion (sending all the documents around). Thechallenge is to
what extent the ordering conditions need to be detailed to prevent these wastes, asdetailing contracts
carries the waste of over-processing