The Time I Found Myself Wanting Stuff Waiting...
October 30, 2014
One of the best and shortest explanations of what Lean is really about, I’ve found in the “This is Lean” book by Niclas Modig and Per Åhlström.
The thing that made it “click” for me was a diagram that contrasted Resource efficiency with Flow efficiency. I love it! Even though I might have talked about Efficiency versus Effectiveness… Well, it’s not my book—maybe that’s why it’s famous and I’m not.
Basically:
- Scoring high on Resource efficiency is, for example, a melting plant for steel. You want that running all the time. You keep a lot of material ready to be processed because the plant is so expensive to shut down.
- Scoring high on Flow efficiency is, for example, the fire department. Most of the time they have enormous overcapacity, just sitting around waiting until they are needed. We want much less work...