Tag Archives: method

Can You See It?

Leave a reply

“We have plenty of people to do the work,” Max explained. “I wrote all the steps for them to follow, a nice flow chart as a visual on the cover of the binder. As the projects move through, I have Gant charts to help me understand the status, so I can explain to the customer.”

“It all sounds very organized. So what’s the problem?” I asked.

“The problem is, the production team doesn’t follow the work instructions. I walked by the work cell yesterday and it was clearly being done out of sequence. I suddenly knew why we were having QC problems on some of the output.”

“And?” I pressed.

“I asked why they were doing it that way, when we had just completed a training program on the correct sequence. Do you believe this? They told me the training program was wrong, that they had been doing it their way for a long time and didn’t see the need to change. Besides, it was easier to do it their way.”

“And they had just been through training?” I wanted to know.

“Well, yes, it wasn’t like a class. I spent ten minutes with the four of them. It was really common sense. I don’t see why they didn’t get it. If I had smarter production people, they would have figured it out on their own,” Max was clearly frustrated.

“You see something they don’t see?” I said in the form of a question.

“Yes. And how,” he replied.

“Did you ever think, you see something they cannot see?”

A Process and a System

Leave a reply

From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
What’s the difference between a process and a system?

Response:
A process is the way we get something done. A process is a shift from the haphazard, often the backbone of a discipline or a set of instructions. A process can take the form of a checklist, often has an order or sequence to its steps, like do this first, then do that.

A system is more robust than a process. A system has a defined start and a finish. A system also has a series of steps, but there are different relationships between the steps. In a system, some steps can be done at the same time (concurrent steps). Some steps depend on other steps to be completed first, before the current step can begin (dependent steps). Some steps run at different speeds and can bottleneck other steps (constraints). Some steps may only be required under specific conditions (conditional steps). Some steps may loop back to previous steps and repeat (iterative steps). A system looks at specific conditions, finds the similarities and, by treating them the same, produces a consistent outcome. A system looks at specific conditions, finds the differences and, by treating them differently accommodates a range of variables.

Looking at levels of work, a process may more accurately be used at S-II, while a system is more likely required at S-III.