Also called overburden, overload
What is muri?
The Japanese word for overburden: pushing people or machines beyond what they can sustain.
What else it is called
- Other names
- overburden, overload
- In French
- surcharge
Related entries
Understanding muri
Overburden. A machine run above its rated speed to catch up, a line staffed below what the work needs, an operator asked to do in forty seconds what takes fifty. It produces short-term output and pays for it later in breakdowns, defects, injuries and people leaving.
The reason it is named separately is that it is invisible in the numbers that managers watch. Output looks fine during the period of overburden. The cost appears a quarter later as unplanned downtime or a vacancy, by which time nobody connects the two.
It is usually downstream of unevenness. Smooth the schedule and the peaks that force the overburden largely disappear, which is why the three words are taught together.
In practice
If a machine that is run above rated speed during catch-up weeks is also your most frequent breakdown, those two facts are the same fact.
Frequently asked
How is overburden different from being busy?
Busy is sustainable; overburden is not. The test is whether the pace could be held indefinitely without equipment failing, quality dropping or people leaving. If the answer depends on the period ending soon, it is overburden.