Using "Pull Processes" for Enhanced Efficiency
The Find: Business author Michael Port offers a parable about a toilet to illustrate how to eliminate waste by integrating "pull" processes with clearly visible cues into your business.- The Source: Excerpts from Beyond Booked Solid, by Michael Port, featured on the blog of Tim Ferriss.
The Takeaway: Author Michael Port uses a guest spot on Tim Ferriss's blog to tell a tale about a toilet located at his Aikido dojo. It may not sound like a promising route to business enlightenment, but Port turns the toilet into a lesson in the value of incorporating "pull" rather than "push" processes into your business.
First, what's the difference between a "push" and a "pull" process? Toyota runs an organization with a lot of pull elements -- it tries to only produce what the customer wants. The opposite, a push system, is designed to produce a certain amount of product, rather than focusing on responding to demand. What's all this got to do with a toilet? Well, to start with it's not just your average toilet. It's an incinerator toilet. Port explains:
You first press a button to start the heating system and then put a special purpose coated paper bowl liner... down between two sloping pieces of steel... You do "your business" into the paper filter, step onto a lever, and wave goodbye to your waste and any toilet paper. The toilet incinerates the filter and extra donations from you at a very high temperature... However, you can't use the toilet without these special purpose coated paper bowl liners.
The point of the tale, however, is in the system for replenishing the bowl liners rather than the mechanics of high temperature waste disposal. Port explains:
My teacher and his wife have implemented a very simple "pull system" so that we always have just the right number of liners... Over time my teacher and his wife have determined just how many boxes of this paper to keep on hand, based on the frequency of use. It happens to be four boxes. These boxes are then stacked on a specific shelf... On the bottom box is written--when you open this box tell George or Patti... They then order 4 more boxes--and have determined, through learning by doing, just how long it takes to receive a shipment of 4 new boxes. It's a very simple pull system.
So what's the takeaway for managers without high-tech toilets? Firstly, the value of pull systems for eliminating waste. No one wants a bathroom closet jam-packed with eighteen boxes of excess liners (and you'll probably still have to run out completely before you order more), and no manager wants inventory piling up either. Second, the value of visual cues. By putting the box on a prominent shelf and not hidden in a cabinet somewhere, the problem can be seen before it develops into a full-blown crisis. As Port points out: "People are stimulated by the visual, tactile and audible." So find ways to make problems literally visible and you're bound to find they are corrected earlier, more easily and with a minimum of waste.
The Question: Could you and should you find ways to build more "pull" systems into your business?