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“Blue Light” creating capacity for nothing (2007)

theoryofconstraints.blogspot.com

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Re: “Blue Light” creating capacity for nothing (2007)

#41

Post by anenefan »

I know most people are gushing with positives ... but to me this reads like the epitome of a clueless consultant who got lucky because the 30 plus years manager missed the basics ... unless the era of the tale was early 60s or something or some middle of nowhere fabrication that sprang up with little idea of how other similar places work ... um great story but what really was this based on.

In the industry it's fairly well known (ok that's a weasel phrase even though I'm sure I'd be right if I used 99.999999%) in regard to the overall benefits of TAs (Trade Assistants.) Typically a TA around welders, they're grinding and readying the surfaces to be welded and helping position the work. Though there's value in setting up, not just making blue light, welders generally receive a much higher pay packet, since ultimately it's their good welding skills that ensures quality welds leave the floor and a long life of the component.

What's obvious is what would have happened if the blue light was 50 or 60% of the time and the welding machines were at capacity. (Higher capacity welding machines are generally a lot more expensive.) To the clueless a lot more can be squeezed out ... and that's what the hero would have aimed to do, in fact no doubt another 25%. The experienced plant manager would have then kindly thanked them at that point perhaps realising the consultant was out of their depth.

Re: “Blue Light” creating capacity for nothing (2007)

#42

Post by [deleted] »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #27
mft_ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my first thought: rather than three or more welders welding ~10% of the time, they needed a team of helpers setting things up, and a single welder moving quickly from job to job...

Yup. A welder's helper is a lot cheaper than a welder, not to mention all the gear time that produces no value for anyone. You want to set things up to the high skill workers are as much as possible able to spend their time on the high skill task.

[deleted]

Re: “Blue Light” creating capacity for nothing (2007)

#44

Post by giorgosts »

Bullshit story the consultant made up to bolster his point (93% efficiency claim from a foreman wtf).

Of course finding some help moving parts around for the welders would be the first thing the foreman would think of, because thats what foremans do all the time in factories.

Maybe the welders chose to work this way (i.e. inefficiently) because continuous welding produces fatigue which risks H&S and lowers the quality of the product.

So if the story was real, the solution would be extra personnel so the welding is done continuously, by rotating people between welding, moving parts and other jobs.

Re: “Blue Light” creating capacity for nothing (2007)

#45

Post by kelnos »

sitkack wrote: post #23
xyzelement wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what you mean by "productivity and value bigot?" In my mind productivity and value generation are major virtues that benefit the doer and society, big "bigot" has a negative connotation and I don't understand how it goes together.

Devaluing anything that isn't what the executive considers value. One wants optimize systems, not just increase the duty cycle of the thing that is expensive. By focusing on the only thing that one considers "adding value", the "non-value add" tasks and positions become viewed as low quality, low skilled and fungible. The person who fills and jigs the welder's pipeline is just as valuable from a systems perspective a…

Sometimes -- as I believe is true in the author's case -- these tasks and positions are low-skilled and fungible. The extra helper was lifting things, moving and arranging things, and peeling the plastic wrappers off new parts.

Nearly any able-bodied worker can do those tasks, and they don't require much skill. That doesn't mean they have no value to the overall process; obviously they do. But there's a big difference between finding and hiring a trained welder (or training someone up), and finding any random worker who can lift things and follow some basic instructions.

Absolutely agree with you that focusing only on the "value add" tasks can cause blindness. But that doesn't make the other "non value add" tasks somehow high-skill, high-quality, difficult-to-replace tasks.

Re: “Blue Light” creating capacity for nothing (2007)

#46

Post by sitkack »

sokoloff wrote: post #32
sitkack wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> remove stupid/low-skilled work This is an example of what I mentioned in my other comment.

It is literally stupid work (pure waste) to require them to repeatedly suit-up in and later remove PPE in order to be able to do a different task. It is low-skilled work to move a part from here to there as compared to welding. These are literally correct and practically useful descriptions of the work removed from the welders.

We aren't talking about the same things.

One has to separate the value judgement from the system optimization. The system is the combination of the all the pieces operating in concert. You can't point at a specific part and say, "this is the only thing of importance".

Re: “Blue Light” creating capacity for nothing (2007)

#47

Post by GuB-42 »

twobitshifter wrote: post #14

It's incredible that one person was able to handle all the work that took up 90% of the welders time. Lots of time must have been spent getting in and out of gear. I’d expect that one guy to end up the bottleneck and the welders to be waiting for him to bring them parts, but it says he even as time to peel the plastic! I imagine the blue light applied to programming would be a crude tool. I want to hear keys clacking…

For me, the programming equivalent of the blue light is my development environment being in focus, and receiving key strokes and mouse clicks.

Crude but surprisingly accurate. If I am not interacting with my development environment, it usually mean there is a problem somewhere. Sometimes that's me (slacking off, getting lost,...), sometimes it is organisational (useless meetings and processes,...), sometimes technical (slow computer, unresponsive network,...). But it is always a sign of inefficiency.

Re: “Blue Light” creating capacity for nothing (2007)

#48

Post by sitkack »

kelnos wrote: post #45
sitkack wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devaluing anything that isn't what the executive considers value. One wants optimize systems, not just increase the duty cycle of the thing that is expensive. By focusing on the only thing that one considers "adding value", the "non-value add" tasks and positions become viewed as low quality, low skilled and fungible. The person who fills and jigs the welder's pipeline is just as valuable from a systems perspective a…

Sometimes -- as I believe is true in the author's case -- these tasks and positions are low-skilled and fungible. The extra helper was lifting things, moving and arranging things, and peeling the plastic wrappers off new parts. Nearly any able-bodied worker can do those tasks, and they don't require much skill. That doesn't mean they have no value to the overall process; obviously they do. But there's a big differenc…

> these tasks and positions are low-skilled and fungible.

Any task requiring or being > 100% better when done with more than one person is now a team. We are now optimizing team output and talking about low-skill is no longer an accurate description of the problem.

It also under attributes how important having a quality fitment/parts prep person could be to the quality and pace of the output. Adding another person can make the work 2x or more productive. If they can spot problems before they get to the welding stage, even more.

When I was young and while I was probably the A-team of the B players in the org, I romanticized about what it would be like to be in a high performing org of all A-players. This thinking is flawed, it devalues the importance of the b-players and puts an outsized importance on the high value heroes.

That prep person may be fungible on day zero, but by the end of the week, they should be a high functioning team member. The value bigot will say that the person that only preps the pipeline should only be paid X/hr because the work is low-skill. But their value to the system is much higher. We should be thinking in systems ant labels about what each component of that system is worth.

Re: “Blue Light” creating capacity for nothing (2007)

#49

Post by sokoloff »

sitkack wrote: post #46
sokoloff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is literally stupid work (pure waste) to require them to repeatedly suit-up in and later remove PPE in order to be able to do a different task. It is low-skilled work to move a part from here to there as compared to welding. These are literally correct and practically useful descriptions of the work removed from the welders.

We aren't talking about the same things. One has to separate the value judgement from the system optimization. The system is the combination of the all the pieces operating in concert. You can't point at a specific part and say, "this is the only thing of importance".

I never said that. I do stand by GP’s claim that taking off and putting on PPE repeatedly and putting parts on a cart is stupid and low-skilled work, respectively, compared to welding.

Re: “Blue Light” creating capacity for nothing (2007)

#50

Post by drivers99 »

hn_go_brrrrr wrote: post #28
vivegi wrote: post #3

Great article. It is almost always the case that we live under "assumed constraints". Most of the time when we question the underlying assumptions we are able to break the constraint or relax it to obtain a better solution. The Goal, by Eliyahu M. Goldratt is highly recommended for understanding Theory of Constraints told from the view of a fictional plant manager.

I read that, having received a similar recommendation, but after I finished it I had no idea how to translate that into my own job (I do not manage a factory).

The Phoenix Project is based on The Goal but applied to the software industry.
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