Notes from my December 2019 reading of This is Lean by Niklas Modig
28 – Flow efficiency is not about shortening the speed of the value adding activity, it’s about eliminating the non-value activities.
34 – All processes are covered by 3 laws 1. Littles Law (pg 34)
2. The law of bottlenecks (pg 37)
3. The law of the effect of variation on processes (pg 40)
34 – Little’s Law throughput time = flow units in process X cycle time
43 – Increased vacation = increased throughput time
45 – How to improve flow efficiency
1 – Reduce queues to reduce total number of flow units in process
2 – Work Faster (reduce cycle time)
3 – Add resources (increase capacity)
4 – Eliminate or Manage Variation
48 – Waiting time can generate new needs. (How many times has a custom hack done for a customer who can’t wait for the actual feature cause problems down the line?)
49 – Waiting times can cause windows of opportunity to close
54 – Stop starting and start finishing. There are negative effects of handling too many flow units at the same time.
57 – Lots of handoffs generate defects.
68 – Jidoka = Automation w/ a human touch. Example is the loom that stops when a thread breaks, prompting human interaction.
73 – Seven forms of waste
1 – Waste of overproduction
2 – Waste of time on hand (waiting)
3 – Waste in transportation
4 – Waste in processing itself
5 – Wast in inventory
6 – Waste in movement
7 – Wast of making defective products
81 – Outline of the Toyota Way
90 – Emphasize the goal, or end state, rather than the means use/needed to achieve it
91 – The connection between the means and the goal are not the same for everyone
105 – Efficiency frontier is pushed inward as variation increases
107 – Business strategy is figure out your prioritization of Cost & Differentiation.
108 – Operations Strategy is how you will product the product or service given your business strategy.
125 – Looking at the timeline from customer request to Cash. What does the timeline look like for us?
125 – Flow efficiency before resource efficiency. But you still should look at resource efficiency.
126 – Lean is an operating strategy.
136 – BVCs (Big Visual Charts) again. What should be on our walls?