This document discusses sources of waste and inefficiency in both water companies and other businesses. It notes that water companies in England and Wales lose over 3 billion litres of water per day through leaks, representing 20-27% of treated water. More broadly, it outlines different types of waste as identified by Taiichi Ohno, including excess processing, inventory, defects, and unnecessary motion or transportation. It argues that underlying sources of waste often stem from leadership issues like poor planning, lack of controls, misaligned goals between management and employees, and failure to empower workers to identify problems. The document provides examples of how incentivizing employees only on sales volume rather than profitability can reduce quality, and how engaging operators to propose improvements through