🔍 Lean Architect · Tyshchenko Lean Academy

Work Type Classification

Two questions, three categories, three different decisions

Classification algorithm

When you review the steps of a process, it’s important to identify correctly what role each one plays in creating value. Two questions sort any operation into three categories — and each category leads to its own decision, not to a generic “optimize.”

YES NO YES NO YES NO Type of work Required for production? Meets customer requirements? Supports business functions? Creates value Work needed to meet the customer’s needs and the product requirements Optimize Required for business functions Work the customer doesn’t pay for, but it’s needed to meet legal requirements Eliminate or minimize Does not create value (waste) Work that creates no value and doesn’t meet any customer requirement Eliminate
Classify on your own
The most common trap: everything that’s “needed” gets filed as value. The check is simple — would the customer agree to pay for this operation as a separate line on the invoice? If not, it’s either a business function or waste.
Where classification fits in a process audit

An audit with the MIRA audit method starts not with measurements but with sorting out what exactly we’re measuring. Until the process steps are split into the three categories, any efficiency number describes a mix of useful and useless work.

The practical consequence: the value-added ratio (the share of time in the “value” category out of the total process time) can’t be calculated without this classification. In an illustrative audit of a packing line at a mid-size food manufacturing plant, it came to 38% — meaning 62% of paid time gave the customer nothing.
Three categories — three different actions
1
Creates value → optimizeThis work isn’t cut or removed. It’s made more stable, faster and safer. A mistake here is expensive: cut the value and you damage the product.
2
Required for business functions → eliminate or minimizeIt can’t be removed — the law, a regulation or safety requires it. But it can be simplified, automated or combined with another operation. You can’t drop a mandatory batch release check, but cutting its paperwork from 15 minutes to 4 is entirely realistic.
3
Does not create value → eliminateThe only category where the right action is to remove it completely. Don’t optimize a 250-foot trip — remove the need for it.
The most common classification mistake
The branch “required for production — yes, meets customer requirements — no.”
This is rework, touching up product after a defect, re-inspection “just in case.” The operation really is needed to get the product out — but only because something went wrong earlier. The customer doesn’t pay for it, so it’s waste, not value. This is where teams go wrong most often.