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Milk Kanban

brodzinski.com

61–70 of 173 posts

Re: Milk Kanban

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in the army we had a simple system to determine who fell asleep on guard duty during training exercises[0], who was in possession of the squad leader's watch when everyone woke up. Nobody really took guard duty seriously when it was just the platoon spending the night in the woods and between the three squads plus 'radio watch' there was always bound to be someone awake the penalty for falling asleep was u…

That's not a relevant analogy. In your example, staying awake during guard duty is your job and it's a proper responsibility. You should be penalized if you fail at your job. I'm saying that tracking milk shouldn't be part of your job, because it's not a good use of people's time. None of it has anything to do with "importance". It's about what is best for the business .

So... how is café latte "best for the business"?

Would the business fail if the milk supply ran out?

Re: Milk Kanban

#62

Another thing I really like about Kasia's milk system is that it is a zero-emotional overhead communication. Just take the ticket and put it on her desk, and all will be handled.

First install truck horns, and have that go off for the dev being assigned a ticket.

Re: Milk Kanban

#63
post #60

The milk example looks very stupid in my opinion. Something more efficient would be something like this: - there is a closet in the kitchen with extra supplies: milk, sugar, ... - Kasia goes in the kitchen once per week to do the inventory of remaining supplies. If items <= 1, then she order new extra items for each low in quantity supplies...

Why is this more efficient?

Batching.

Re: Milk Kanban

#67

Cigarette rolling paper comes in a flat pack, from which you take the papers one by one, like a box of Kleenex. Towards the bottom of the pack, there's gonna be an odd-colored piece of paper, after which there still gonna be 10 pieces left in the box. The odd-colored paper tells you that it's time to buy a new pack, but you still have 10 cigarettes' worth. Edit: found a photo of this phenomenon on r/antiassholedesign…

Receipt paper rolls also have this: When the roll is near the end there are pink stripes, telling the cashier to have a new roll nearby as the printer is about to run out of paper

Re: Milk Kanban

#68

Cigarette rolling paper comes in a flat pack, from which you take the papers one by one, like a box of Kleenex. Towards the bottom of the pack, there's gonna be an odd-colored piece of paper, after which there still gonna be 10 pieces left in the box. The odd-colored paper tells you that it's time to buy a new pack, but you still have 10 cigarettes' worth. Edit: found a photo of this phenomenon on r/antiassholedesign…

SimpleHuman trashbags do the same thing. When you pull the 5th last bag, it has a big tag reminding you to order more.

Re: Milk Kanban

#69

Cigarette rolling paper comes in a flat pack, from which you take the papers one by one, like a box of Kleenex. Towards the bottom of the pack, there's gonna be an odd-colored piece of paper, after which there still gonna be 10 pieces left in the box. The odd-colored paper tells you that it's time to buy a new pack, but you still have 10 cigarettes' worth. Edit: found a photo of this phenomenon on r/antiassholedesign…

Certain dog poop bags have this but they have a sticker about three bags left that says "three bags left"

Re: Milk Kanban

#70
post #11

It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not convinced it’s a good one. Office managers (or any kind of managers, really) are hired to remove a class of problems, so other people can focus on their job. This is outsourcing bits and pieces of your responsibilities to random coworkers. That being said, none of it is uncommon in modern corporate workplace.

Agree. I dig the idea, really cool, but quoting the article: > it becomes a pain to check the cupboard with milk reserves every now and then If freaking glancing into the shelf once a day (or more like once a week, because this milk has months of shelf life) in scope of full time office manager job is "a pain", maybe that office manager should rethink their employment there.

If its only milk, then this polling might work. But might be also coffee, printer paper, pencils, whatever and you end up doing nothing else than checking shelves all day
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