Hutchinson, W., "The Concept of Waste and its Use in Information System Design", 1994
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No system is 100% efficient and so by definition produces waste. Whilst the concept of waste and waste minimization is entrenched in the industrial systems sector eg with the Just In Time philosophy, it is still not widely used in others such as business information systems. Waste is not confirmed to material loss, but also to such things as time wasted, or to more intangible concepts such as loss of morale. In fact, any unwanted system output is waste. The identification of all but the most obvious of these by system designers can be difficult because they are designing the system using their own perceptions of what is a “good” output and what is waste. Waste can be “in the eye of the beholder”. The identification of waste in all but simple systems can itself be a contentious issue. One person’s waste can be another’s benefit.