The duration that materials, work-in-progress, or finished goods remain stationary waiting for the next operation, inspection, or transport. In lean manufacturing, this is considered one of the primary wastes because it adds no value to the product while tying up floor space and capital. Reducing this idle period requires balancing cycle times across the production line and improving material flow.
We have forty minutes of waiting time baked into this routing just because the forklift driver is shared with the shipping dock.
High waiting times often point to a bottleneck downstream or a mismatch in batch sizes between two consecutive operations.
Also heard as
- queue time
- idle time
Do not mix it up with
- Dwell time: Waiting time is waste when a part sits idle between steps, while dwell time is a required, programmed pause inside a machine's cycle.
Related terms
Takt time
The maximum allowable time to produce one unit in order to meet customer demand.
Bottleneck
The slowest or most restrictive step in a production process that dictates the maximum overall output rate.
Makespan
The total duration required to complete a specific set of scheduled jobs.
Dwell time
The duration a part remains inside a specific machine or process step.