Lean programs hunt down waste. Ergonomics programs hunt down injury risk. More often than you'd think, they're the same hunt — every one of the eight lean wastes loads the body in a predictable way. Walk your operation, check each waste you actually see, and this tool maps it to the ergonomic risk factors it creates and the countermeasures that address both at once.
Check each waste you observe in your operation. Checking a waste opens its linked ergonomic risk factors and practical countermeasures, and adds it to your ranked summary below.
Observed wastes ranked by typical ergonomic risk priority — manual handling and high-repetition wastes first, since they drive the most strain injuries. Your summary updates as you check wastes above.
Want a second set of eyes on this? Send your checklist results to Scott Weede, CIE at North Texas Safety Consulting Services. The button opens your own email app with everything pre-filled — your ranked wastes, their risk factors, and the countermeasures — addressed to scott@ntscs.com. Nothing is sent until you press send in your email app.
Check at least one waste above to enable sending. Prefer to talk first? Reach Scott through ntscs.com.
The eight wastes — Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Overproduction, Over-processing, Defects, and Skills (underused talent) — come from lean manufacturing's classic TIMWOODS framework. This checklist connects each waste to the ergonomic risk factors it tends to create, so a waste walk doubles as a first-pass injury-risk screen. It is a starting point for conversation and prioritization, not a substitute for a task-level ergonomic assessment.
It pairs with the NTSCS article “Motion waste is an injury signal” — motion is the waste most often waved off as harmless, and the one whose postures and repetition show up most often in strain-injury reports. Read more at ntscs.com.