The Toyota Production System

Use of resources is one of the greatest challenges globally. Circularity aims to reduce resource input to the system and to avoid resource losses in the system. An extended concept of waste from the Toyota Production System is applied to real estate management (REM) to reduce the resource input and to manage for long-term circularity. The extended waste concept identifies waste as excess use of any type of resource, including human resources and time. This resource capacity is used for both work that adds value and for work that does not. Waste reduction means that the use of resources is minimised especially in work that does not add value. In other words, the available resources are released resulting in a re-created resource base, which is mobilised into the value-adding work. In terms of alignment theories in corporate real estate management, this means horizontal alignment on three levels: (1) work level, (2) system level, and (3) employee level. The extended waste concept on these three levels motivates organisations to improve their processes and strategic routines, resulting in structural and long-term advantage to sustain the transmission from linear economy to circular economy.