A short, very basic description of how lead time suffers from task switching and how limiting work in progress makes this better.

1. e
Task switching
blur your vision
Mats Ygfors
torsdag den 13 oktober 2011

2. I´m sure you who reads this, understand the
importance of limiting work in progress
Still some of this could be useful in discussions with teams about
this subject. Please do not hesitate to let me know if you think
my reasoning is wrong or if you have any improvement suggestions
to these slides.
Mats Ygfors
Athega AB
@matsygfors
© Mats Ygfors Athega AB
torsdag den 13 oktober 2011

3. W A S T E
Does not add value
When we focus on lead times, none value adding activities
could be consider waste.
When trying to drive a continuos improvement culture, discussions
about what is waste and not waste sometimes have no easy answer.
© Mats Ygfors Athega AB
torsdag den 13 oktober 2011

4. Value during lead-time
Order Value delivered
© Mats Ygfors Athega AB
torsdag den 13 oktober 2011

5. Value during lead-time
Below the green cells indicate the value added for this
specific activity or customer demand. The red is waste in this
activity´s point if view.
Order Value delivered
© Mats Ygfors Athega AB
torsdag den 13 oktober 2011

6. One customer´s value is another´s waste.
But waste in the form of extended lead time could be value
adding for another as long as we work with multiple activities
at the same time.
Demand 1
Demand 2
Order Value delivered
© Mats Ygfors Athega AB
torsdag den 13 oktober 2011

7. Our focus path
As we can only focus on one thing at a time. The path of your
focus when performing multiple tasks could be visualized as below.
As soon as we focus on one started activity all other activities
experiences waste in the form of extended lead time.
Demand 1
Demand 2
Order Value delivered
Focus path
© Mats Ygfors Athega AB
torsdag den 13 oktober 2011

8. Find real blockages and bottle necks
We could benefit from focusing our improvement activities
on real blockages and bottle necks. Not the extended
lead time caused by task switching.
Demand 1
Demand 2
© Mats Ygfors Athega AB
torsdag den 13 oktober 2011

9. Find real blockages and bottle necks
We could benefit from focusing our improvement activities
on real blockages and bottle necks. Not the extended
lead time caused by task switching.
Demand 1
Demand 2
Local
waste
in activities
caused by high
WIP
© Mats Ygfors Athega AB
torsdag den 13 oktober 2011

10. Find real blockages and bottle necks
We could benefit from focusing our improvement activities
on real blockages and bottle necks. Not the extended
lead time caused by task switching.
Demand 1
Demand 2
Waste
Local caused by
waste other
in activities problems
caused by high
WIP
© Mats Ygfors Athega AB
torsdag den 13 oktober 2011

11. Move this waste from blur to visible
The waste from task switching is now minimized and visible in the
queueing time. Now it´s possible to focus on real blockages
and bottle necks which in the long run will lower the queueing time.
Real waste
Value delivered
Demand 1
Demand 2 Queueing
Real waste
Order Value delivered
© Mats Ygfors Athega AB
torsdag den 13 oktober 2011

12. L I M I T W I P
Limiting WIP is a very powerful tool
The End
© Mats Ygfors Athega AB
torsdag den 13 oktober 2011