VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [113]
“Everything done by an analyst is represented by a pink Post-it Note,” said Wayne.
“I see there are a lot of pink notes up there,” said Amy. “So, where is the value stream for the production design reviews that affect the Oakton plant?”
Wayne pointed to the bottom left corner of the VSM butcher paper where, almost lost in the complexity, a simple line entered from the left and went through a relatively small number of steps, mostly marked with blue dots.
“That’s it?” asked Amy.
“Well, it depends,” said Wayne. “If the analyst approves the design – which happens about eighty percent of the time – then it’s released to production planning and goes to Oakton. If the analyst finds an issue – the other twenty percent – then it enters this testing loop, where samples or a full prototype are made up and subjected to a testing cycle. Finally, the results ‘loop’ back to the analyst, who then either approves the design, sends it back into the loop for more testing, or rejects it and sends it back to the, um, client via the salesperson. So it can be simple or complex.”
“All right,” said Amy, “but that’s one corner and one or two loops. What’s with the rest of it? Why go into all that detail?”
“Because I felt we needed to see the big picture,” said Wayne. “Due to Viktor’s lack of buy-in last year, we never really got the chance to map it all out.”
“Fine,” said Amy. “I can accept that.”
“And as I was about to say,” Wayne went on, “the full view of the value stream affords us a huge opportunity. Because if we can eliminate waste throughout the F&D subsystem of Hi-T, there should be more resources and time to enable the analysts to do the design reviews.”
Amy felt herself getting angry, felt her lips pressing together and her shoulder muscles tensing. But she made herself speak in a low tone calmly and deliberately.
“Wayne … I … did … not … send you to Rockville with the expectation of pursuing a full-blown implementation of Lean Six Sigma.”
She pointed to the whiteboard, re-erected from the week before.
“Last week we constructed this logical tree that bears rotten fruit. We identified the analysts as being a root cause affecting Oakton’s inability to meet commitments, because of the pressures and conflicts surrounding the design approvals. So, while I have nothing against seeing the big picture, it seems to me that it’s the design approval part of the value stream where we need to focus.”
“But, Amy, that’s my point!” said Wayne. “Isn’t it common sense that if we eliminate the waste throughout F&D, at each one of these little red dots –”
“It will take forever! We do not have that long!” Amy exclaimed, giving in to frustration. “And common sense, to my way of thinking, says that we focus on what is critical to accomplish the most good right now.”
“Okay, okay,” said Wayne “I read you loud and clear. We will focus on the analysts.”
Amy turned to Sarah Schwick and asked, “What’s your take on this?”
“While Wayne was assembling the value stream map – which I do think will be useful in the long run,” said Sarah, “I did a more classic time study of the analysts. I went back through three years of time sheets to try to quantify how they spent their time and see if there were any patterns.”
“And were there any patterns?”
“No. None whatsoever,” said Sarah with a straight face, but then her linear lips cracked a smile. “Sorry. Just trying to keep things light. Yes, there were patterns. For instance, there were far more design ‘clearances,’ as they are officially called, at the end of the month, when there is pressure to clear them out, along with other administrative chores. And there were also more when the number of projects going on was low – or in other words when the analysts had nothing better to do.”
“If I may comment?” asked Murphy. “I never had the luxury of being able to quantify it, but based on my observations, the analysts are a true, but intermittent bottleneck.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Amy.
“A bottleneck, by most accounts anyhow, though not necessarily