In Lean production, the 8 Wastes (Muda) are activities that consume resources without adding value to the customer. Defined initially as seven by Taiichi Ohno, an eighth—non-utilized talent—was later added to address the loss of intellectual capital. Ohno is the visionary Toyota executive and "Father of the Toyota Production System.

These inefficiencies include:
Defects
Overproduction
Waiting
Non-utilized talent
Transportation
Inventory
Motion
Extra-Processing

These are referred to as DOWNTIME, equating these inefficiencies with actual production stoppages, such as "downtime", or TIMWOODS, based on their acronyms (where the 'S' in TIMWOODS represents the waste of 'Skills,' i.e., non-utilised talent).

Systematic elimination of these wastes is fundamental to achieving operational excellence.