Management must fight “resistance” to “continuous flow”
What is the best way to
produce something?
Since we live in a world in which everything, or almost everything, we consume is the result of a production process, this is an important question, and one that has intrigued humanity for millennia.
For a long time, the answer to this question was “large-batch production”, one of the foundations of the industrial revolution. And this still influences many processes in companies today, including administrative ones.
In this type of production, each step produces “large batches” of activities, which may involve physical transformation, on the shop floor, or information processing (in offices).
This concept of large batches generally comes with “push production”, that is, each step produces as much as it can, without even knowing what the next phase needs.
This stems from an old paradigm: that the most important thing is to maximize the output of each piece of equipment or each workstation.
The lean concept, or lean thinking, demonstrated decades ago that push, large-batch production causes major problems if we consider the efficiency of a complete value stream.
Inventories – physical or of information – pile up between activities, total lead time increases, quality problems remain hidden, and so on.
To improve this process, Toyota developed, out of necessity, the concept and practice of “continuous flow”, which is one of the foundations of the lean system.
It means producing and moving one item, or order, at a time (or a small batch of items) continuously through a series of processing steps.
And each phase only does what is required by the next stage, which is known as “pull production” which, as the name itself says, reverses the logic of the “push” production typical of “large batches”. It is demand that sets the pace.
As a result, a number of benefits can be observed:
● Production flexibility improves, making it possible to produce with greater variety and in a way more closely aligned with customers' real needs.
● Waiting and unnecessary steps are eliminated.
● Overproduction is avoided (since only what is demanded is made).
● Defects, and therefore rework, are minimized.
All of this tends to cut costs, increase productivity, improve quality and, of course, maximize competitiveness.
In theory, all great. But if the benefits are so evident and proven, why is it still common to find people, and even organizations, who still resist continuous flow and insist on push production in large batches?
It is hard to answer this question, but I would venture to say that cultural and social factors carry a lot of weight.
For example, working in continuous flow requires multidisciplinary areas and teams working side by side, so that the different activities are done one after the other and do not need to be transferred in large batches between specialized departments.
This changes the way the hierarchy is organized, requires working with different perspectives in a higher team spirit, brings greater transparency to quality problems, and so on. And many people may feel threatened by these changes.
These and other aspects mean that effectively implementing continuous, pull flow in all processes, whether production or administrative, is still a challenge for an organization's management today. It is not just a matter of adopting techniques, but of changing some paradigms.
All organizations are seeking to modernize their ways of working, incorporating new technologies, organizational structures, ways of stimulating creativity and innovation, and so on.
In this scenario, deepening the application of pull and flow production is not only an opportunity but a necessity that can accelerate and maximize the results of these changes.
For this to happen, it is important to consider that moving an organization from “large batches” and “push production” to “continuous flow” and “pull production” also requires changing the way people think and act.
