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The manufacturing world is quite familiar with the term "hidden factory"1. It points to the extra resources — people, material, energy, tooling, etc. — that are required to rework and repair the variances coming from the production process.
Projects have plenty of variance. Much of it requires rework. Some work is inevitably scrapped. One source of rework results from work that gets out of sequence. One work step proceeds without the appropriate precedent tasks being completed. When the intended precedent task does complete the other task(s) must be reworked. Or, there's no budget available for rework, so someone on the team decides to make do. Or, there's no time available for rework, so someone decides to make do.
iSixSigma ran a cartoon today, Hidden Factory, that got me thinking about what we can do about the hidden project factory. I've been Unsettled About Variation before. While I ponder in my unsettlement, I want to get you thinking with me.
What do you systematically do on your projects to minimize the wastes associated with poor quality?
Please leave a comment. I'll write more about this throughout November.
- Armand Feigenbaum introduced the idea that there is the equivalent of an additional factory hidden within a factory to handle the defects of production. Later, Jeffrey G. Miller and Thomas E. Vollmann popularized the idea in their paper for HBR. [ ⇑ back ]
? Guy Kawasaki wrote, "Less is the new more." Easy to learn: symmetry, seduction, subtraction, and sustainability. Very valuable to do. Step 1: Read Matt's book!! just 140 keystrokes.
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I am exchanging emails with the CEO of a major aerospace contractor, and he claims that the hidden factory (not his words) is fear. The fear that comes from suspecting that your latest innovation will evaporate your job. So, he’s working hard, if not to eliminate fear from the workplace (an impossibility- there are no guarantees) but to elicit trust. When conditions dictated that a plant be merged with another 30 miles away, he provided free transportation for three years for the displaced workers. Time enough for them to decide if they wanted to move closer, commute themselves, or find another employeer.
So many companies are leaning up through anoexoria that they encourage people to bulk up. The resulting bloat is perfectly understandable. As this CEO says, “My people aren’t stupid. They won’t suggest improvements if they mean they might lose their job.”
He also claims one stunning insight. He believes that lean is a journey, one that properly engaged in, should take decade-if ever-to complete. Shifting the mindset from achieving a position to traveling continually, he says, is the chief challenge.
If you knew you would never arrive at a destination, would you ever embark?
david schmaltz