I was recently having a discussion with a friend who was explaining some Theory of Constraints training he had experienced some time back.
The training had involved showing that it was faster to do something if a person concentrated on one thing at once. The example given was an exercise involving giving people a pile of mixed up different coloured objects and asking them to sort them in to groups of the same colour.
The exercise showed that it was quicker to work thorough the items methodically picking out the different colours in order rather than picking up any colour and putting it with like coloured pieces.
This is a great learning tool, it helps to teach people to do things one thing at a time, rather than doing lots of different tasks and finishing none of them. This is a good lesson to learn especially in the industry this training was related to.
However, I have a bit of problem with this, as it sounds a lot like ‘batching’ to me.
To continue the example above a little further I wonder what the customer would have wanted? Would they want all the blue pieces followed by all the red pieces followed by…….? Or is it actually more likely they wanted a red, followed by two blues, followed by a green then …… you get the idea.
The solution above may have made sorting the pieces quicker for the people doing the task (lets call them the supplier) but not necessarily enabling them to deliver the items in the order the customer wanted them.
This line of thinking is very common in manufacturing and reasons such as machine change overs and tooling changes are reasons given as to why all one part must be made first, then another part, and so on until all the components are ready and the final product can be assembled.
It is always difficult to translate these theoretical ideas into real examples but I will try.
On a railway project, works are usually split into works occurring in sequential weeks. If I need to book some trains for a project extending over several weeks the usual temptation would be to work out all the trains then send them all through in one go. This is easier for the people planing the work as they can think about the trains all in one go and submit them together.
However the guys that process these trains into train orders may prefer that each week came through as soon as it is prepared rather than waiting for them all then having to rush to get through a big heap of work.
The same also applies to the planning of speed restrictions in association with the work. It may take some time to determine exactly when each speed restriction is to be removed, owing to planning tamping, welding and stressing works. However, again the speed restrictions are often all submitted together after all the speeds have been worked out, this can take some time, maybe weeks, waiting for possession confirmations, tamper bookings to be made etc. All the while some of the speeds will not change as they are fixed for various reasons, however the planning teams are not aware as they are all on the same spread sheet and the whole thing must be finished before it is submitted.
These may not be the best examples, but I hope they illustrate a couple of points.
Firstly, think about the recipient of the information you are preparing as being a customer. Therefore, treat them like a customer, and ask them what they want and in what order.
Secondly, making something quicker for yourself does not necessarily mean it will provide the quickest result for the process.
Please leave a comment below, maybe you disagree!
This post was written by Steve Johnson
Tags: Continuous Improvement, Lean, Steven Johnson, Theory of Constraints, track renewals