Let’s play a little guessing game.
In South Africa, there are several ways of crossing a junction, depending on the context:
- The classic, familiar context: all the lights work and you follow the traffic lights 🚥
- The dangerous context: some of the traffic lights work, but not on all sides of the intersection 😱 but rare
- The consensual context: none of the traffic lights work, so the accepted method is to switch to first come, first to leave.
- The innovative context: street vendors or beggars direct the traffic to earn money. Some are well equipped with fluorescent jackets and waistcoats! Sometimes people paid by car insurance companies are employed to direct the traffic because it costs them less than road accidents!
- The administrative solution: the police direct traffic.
Which solution do you think works best?
It may be counter-intuitive, but it’s the third solution that works best: first in, first out. It allows large flows of cars to pass through quickly. It’s more efficient, even if it requires a lot of observation, calm and discipline (I admit that the first few times, I didn’t do very well).
You’re beginning to know me, I like to draw parallels between everyday situations and my work.
This observation got me thinking about the principle of piecemeal production. It’s sometimes difficult to visualise and here, you can actually experience the difference! You are a part travelling on a makeshift production line!
In business, it’s a bit the same: we tend to want to do large batches of production, to want to do everything at once, and then release everything. Except that this is less efficient than the piece-by-piece method. So when I try to improve the flow of parts and information, I with help you as much as possible to get everything flowing as smoothly as possible to avoid delays wherever possible. Do you want to improve your flows? Your customer experience? Would you like to try your hand at the South African adventure? Let’s get in touch!