One Piece Flow versus Mass Production
by Ron Pereira on February 18th, 2008In this video we watch the traditional “mass production” manufacturing technique square off against the lean “one piece flow” methodology. Have a watch to see who wins!
This is my first attempt at making a video like this. I must admit, talking into a camera is much harder than pressing these keys! With this said, you can expect much kaizen to be done as I work to improve my “skills” in this area.
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[…] for Ron Pereira from LSS Academy for putting together a video that shows this. Even if you don’t have a postal carrier standing by to deliver each envelope, it takes less […]
Ron, this was great. The suggestion I would make is to “time lapse” the sequences where you were assembling the envelopes, to reduce the viewers wait time. Look forward to the next one.
Ron - Great video. We are just beginning to implement lean and I plan to have my team watch this video to give them the visual insight they can’t get from articles or books.
Cheers!
Matt
Thank you Matt! I am glad you enjoyed it and hope your colleagues do as well. I am already thinking about the next one… so stay tuned!
Hi, Ron! Interesting video. I want to take it a bit further. How about putting 2-3 people in mass production forming like a production line and 2-3 persons doing each the one-piece flow process and then see it goes?
Hi Ron and thanks for the video. I remember reading the ’scene’from the book, and wondered if the one piece flow would actually win.. you answered my question. I will share this video for our staff.
I hope to see some more video’s, these illustrate the concepts better than reading from the books. Further, sharing these to people will save time - THANKS!
Btw, previous post (Delid) idea is pretty good. Involving more people in the examples would make this example even more powerful.
Ron,
This was a great video and was wondering if you have in a format that we could download and show? We do a similar activity with a group of 4 or 5 people, but we can’t show the waste like you do during your presentation as it stops everyone doing their work. We would like to still do our activity, but show your video and have the group think of waste they saw and the feelings that the others that didn’t have work compared to other group that did.
Thanks!
Thanks Petri and Sean.
Sean, I am not sure I understand your question? Would you mind clarifying it again?
Ron,
You can see from all the comments on this blog that you have filled a need. Great Job. I really appreciate that you have allowed the video to be down-loadable, I think this is very generous. Simple fast videos like this are great, but difficult to keep short, you did very well on this one. I would not edit the stuffing sequence as suggested earlier, as some may think you are playing a trick….
Thank you Lester.
Honestly I was really debating putting the video out there since I am not particularly happy with it. I stumble around with my words too much, etc.
So, I am really excited people like this as I expect to get a lot better at it over time!
Also, I figured - like you did - people would accuse me of cheating if I did a magical fast forward so I left it as is. I thought about only folding 5 or 6 sheets. But 10 worked OK I guess.
I am excited to make the next video. Anyone have ideas for a topic?
I am new to this and taking my lean six-sigma foundation tomorrow.
Do you have a view of a process that involves maintenance to roads where a large amount of inventory and people with various skills are required?
Sorry if this is not a lean scenario.
I really enjoyed your video; it made me laugh and captured my thoughts and imagination.
[…] One Piece Flow versus Mass Production by Ron Pereira - webcast of the traditional “mass production” manufacturing technique square off against the lean “one piece flow” methodology […]
Ron,
Sorry, took so long to answer. I was wondering if you had a format that could use without all the ads as a presentation for a group.
We do a similar activity but the thing I like a lot about your video is that you superimposed some of the 7 wastes into the video while your doing the activity. This is one thing that the particpants of the activity themselves cannot see and even after we have completed the exercise with remakrable clarity on the results we still have some that believe batching is better.
Thanks,
Sean
Hi Sean,
If you are looking for the raw video without any of the text (wastes, etc.) showing I could burn you the raw video on a CD or something.
If this would be helpful please contact me by clicking on the “Contact” tab above.
Ron
Great example! — need to edit the video a little I think (lost me at the 4min mark of stuffing envelopes. In health care we face the same problem with doctors offices ’stuffing’ patients in rooms. they are all told to arrive at the same time and then the doctor slowly works there way throught them. I’ve been trying to tell others that they are better off doing ‘one-piece’ work flow and this video is a great example. I’m going to write about it in a couple of days and link back to the video here. Thanks for the resource. Ian.,
http://www.waittimes.blogspot.com
Thanks Ian! I am glad you enjoyed it. I definitely have much kaizen to do on future videos to make them more exciting with less “dead time.” Stay tuned for more!
Ron,
I wanted to thank you for putting this video out there. I was researching a paper for my Business Strategy class on mass production and found you video very informative. I was really confused about the whole lean six sigma thing but your video cleared all that up for me, Thank You!
Thanks,
Marcia
You are very welcome Marcia. I am glad it helped you. Stay tuned as I have more videos to come.
[…] worked with their lean sensei and designed a u-shaped cell where all 3 operators would work in a one piece flow manner. Once the work was redistributed the team was able to produce a PB&J sandwich […]
Re: editing it. You could have two options. One cut to the chase and a link to the option of watching it in its entirety.
My first thought tho was, introduce a defect! That’s where lean really shines. A comparative of defect management (ensuing wasted WIP etc) would make the point clear.
Great tips Kathleen. Thank you and I am honored by your visit. I am a fan of your excellent blog.
I will say this for you, you obviously never did much envelope stuffing in your youth. You fold very slowly, and you have your paper arranged all wrong for stuffing the envelope.
Hi Ron!
I am way out of my league here, as I am a sew-at-home designer entrepreneur, not nearly ready for mass. That being said, I AM in the process of filling a couple of large wholesale orders, and your video was EXTREMELY enlightening!
Since I am my only employee, I have been assuming that the fastest way for me to produce large quanities of my product was to batch the order by assembling ALL of the pants, then all of the shirts, then labelling, etc etc, and I have been feeling sort of BORED and anxious all at the same time, though sewing and design are my passions. I now believe that feeling comes from working HOURS at a time and finding myself with PILES of unfinished business because the pieces and parts are all WIP.
Starting TODAY, I am going to begin using one piece flow and I bet I’ll enjoy my work so much more and have the satisfying feeling of having actually COMPLETED something by the end of the day!
When my clothing line DOES grow to the point where I need production assistance, I am committed to following the lean manufacturing process, and I am so thankful to have come across your video to get that idea firmly cemented in my brain!
The video was great! On point, easy to follow, interesting to watch the ENTIRE process, and NO, you DON’T stumble across your words…I felt as though I was watching a friend demonstate and listening to a fluid conversation. Don’t be so hard on yourself!
Have a terrific day!
Michele
@ bob, umm, thanks for the comment?
@ Michele. Thank you so much for your kind words. You don’t know how much this motivates me! All the best to you with your clothing line.
If you’re going to kaizen the video “experience”, be sure to make a “before vs after” demo! Also, for an idea for another subject, may I humbly submit this? It lends itself quite well to the format you used in this tutorial, though I would be surprised if you have dozens of diskettes from different manufacturers lying around waiting to be destroyed.
Thanks for the idea Eric. I will add it to my hopper of ideas for future videos. All the best.
I thoroughly appreciate you taking the time out to demonstrate these two kinds of approach. The pros and cons pointed out on both sides are a great insight, and has helped me with re-analysing which direction would be the most practical way to go.
Your approach to making videos to explain concepts are very helpful- keep up the great work!
Hi Ron,
Great contribution to Lean community & thanks again. Good to here that you are looking forward to do more.
I felt the stuffing envelops in the first batch process was done at a pace slower than the in the pace of one piece flow. Rating compensation can produce accuracy there.
One piece flow to succeed the tasks need to be at uniform skill level. If at least one task demand higher skill the worker has to be highly skilled. An example would be the garment assemble process where mix and match of differently skilled take place in the batched processing system. In order to make such work suitable for single piece flow the process need to be de-skilled with more automation.
Thanks Diana and Keerthi for the comments.
Keerthi, I went back and watched the video to see if I could notice what you described about me being slower with the batch processing.
I must admit, I was honestly working as consistently as I could during both methods.
I think the main benefit I noticed (and everyone sees) is related to how much of a groove I fell in when doing the one piece flow portion.
Working in batch mode is boring and uninspiring. However, working in a one piece flow manner is far more fulfilling and it’s much easier to get into a groove so to speak.
I too went back and sew the video again. This time I find you relatively slow in the one piece flow. So I guess it was my enthusiasm playing tricks on me.
Now only I understood the “FEELINGS” aspect of it. I could not see that aspect in the video. Thank you again. I am trying to think a topic for your next episode…
Awesome Keerthi. I look forward to your ideas! Have a great week.
Hi Ron;
Seems there are skeptics about. So I, hard-headed person that I am, watched the entire video again with a spreadsheet (similar data posted to my better half’s website).
How do we account for the ~60 second difference in the two processes? (Which I contend is the wrong comparison, more below).
Average time to fold:
Batch: 9 s
Lean: 8 s
Average time to stuff:
Batch: 4 s
Lean: 3 s
Average time to seal:
Batch: 2 s
Lean: 1 s
Average time to stuff:
Batch: 1 s
Lean: 1 s
So, over 10 repetitions, the lean method got a total of 10+10+10=30 seconds of advantage from the shorter time to fold, stuff, and seal.
Could the shorter fold time be due to thinner paper used the second time? Or to the fact that you seem to get better as you go (you start with times of 9-10 s, but end with times of 7-8 s). The shorter stuff and seal times, though, are due to the fact that you are already holding the item from the previous step. You gain 1 second each time from not having to find and pick it up. That’s part of the point, so I contend that it’s unfair to count those against you as if they were a parlor trick of some sort.
Still need to account for 30 seconds, though.
You lose between 2 and 5 seconds every time you move the pile around between steps. Also, you have to manage the pile several times during a task, something you don’t have to do nearly as much with OPF. This also has a factory corollary: storing, moving, retrieving, and looking for WIP.
But those are the wrong numbers to compare. The real advantage, though, is the fact that you are knocking out a complete product roughly every 15 seconds with OPF. Every 15 seconds, the lean manufacturer fills another order. Every 15 seconds, he has the opportunity to inspect WIP and final product for defects.
Heck, let’s even spot the batch production method the 3 second difference (most of which is legitimate gain) so that they both average 18 seconds. The lean producer would be still be fulfilling another order every 18 seconds. The Batch producer doesn’t get any orders filled until 3:47. What if they were hours rather than seconds? With 40 hours in a week, that means that the lean producer is shipping twice a week while the batcher is shipping every 6 weeks. Do you like the idea of cash flowing in twice a week, or every 6 weeks?
For the sake of the skeptics, next time you do something like this, make sure you do the lean method first so that your task times improve more for the batch method. Heck, handicap yourself for the lean method; use one hand and your teeth or something. 18 seconds beats 3:47 like a rented mule.
Holy smokes Batman! That is some analysis, Eric! I am going to throw this comment up in a post to make sure everyone reads it. Thanks so much for your excellent contribution.
[…] safe to say the kinds words, comments, and emails for my one piece flow video have far exceeded my […]
Good job Eric.
How about making a cup of tea in a typical kitchen and a Lean kitchen?
Great video, no nonsense approach, Methodology made simple… Looking forward to more presentations.