The parade of trades dice game reveals the power of flow. Red team rolls normal dice with numbers 1 to 6. Blue team rolls dice showing only 2, 3, and 4. Red team tries to move fast with 6s then hits painful 1s. Blue team maintains steady flow with no variation. Red team finishes in 26 weeks with 380 workers. Blue team finishes in 21 weeks with 280 workers. The cost difference is 8.8 million dollars. The factory example shows why. Four machines working at different speeds create inventory pileup between them. Workers stop running machines and start managing inventory. Throughput drops from 2 items per hour to 1.25 because of the waste. Movement does not equal production. Pushing creates variation and literally destroys projects.
What you'll learn in this episode:
- Why we level out bottlenecks by slowing faster trades: prevents stacking workers, burying scopes, installing too early, creating defects
- How work in process destroys capacity: CPM pushes work to start early, team spends time managing overburden instead of removing roadblocks
- The parade of trades math: 26 weeks times 380 workers equals 21.7 million versus 21 weeks times 280 workers equals 12.9 million
- Why the factory throughput drops from 2 to 1.25 items per hour when machines run at different speeds and inventory piles up
- How finish as you go and quality at the source require leveled work: you need capacity to focus on work in process and complete it right the first time
Do not roll 6s and 1s when you can roll 3s.
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