Production wastes consist of inventory, motion, transportation, waiting, over-processing, over-production, and waiting. Improper management of these identified wastes causes interruption of the production system due to unplanned stoppage time, quality issues, material delinquencies, and other related issues. Thus, in this research, wastes hunting activities were conducted to identify the production wastes using a proper method known as the value stream mapping (VSM). This research was conducted focusing on an electronic-based company because their finished good and product required hundreds of small components and most of the potential wastes were hidden due to the fact that the assembly process is using either a semi-automation or fully automation process. The objective of this research was to define the proper way of the waste detection process to create the opportunity for continuous improvement activity. The result obtained showed that the percentage of wastes was 95, and this situation appeared as hidden waste causing the issues in the production system. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.