Vegetable pricing machine
I was walking through Walmart the other day and saw this simple machine that weighs and prices veggies and fruits. On the surface it seems simple enough – shoppers can price their produce, and save time at check out. To this consultant’s mind, it was a prime example of how Walmart is “feeding the bottleneck” to improve the throughput of people shopping at their stores. Produce pricing is cumbersome, and takes a lot of time at check out.
Theory of Constraints (TOC)
This was made famous by the book, The Goal (affiliate link). It’s a no-nonsense approach to improving flow. Namely, you look for things that slow down or stop flow – because that is where you should focus your attention.
In the Walmart example, the veggies and fruit are the bottleneck because it takes time for the cashier to look up the SKU, guess the price etc. We have all been stuck behind the person with a basket full of loose vegetables, waiting and waiting.
In my experience, we see all kind of things inhibiting flow: old equipment, antiquated policies, poorly training, manual processes, data quality, and poor communication.
- Whatever the constraint, you need to get rid of it.
- Whatever the bottleneck, you need to keep the bottleneck busy.
- The rate of your business is the rate of the bottleneck, everything is waiting around.
Doctors
The biggest constraint at the doctor’s office will be the physician. As such, It’s important to keep the doctor busy – even if it means queuing patients in separate rooms. Feed the bottleneck.
Lawyers
Same thing goes with a law office. It’s the office manager’s job to make sure that the paralegals and assistants keep the flow of work piling up at the lawyer’s desk. The most valuable resource (often the slowest, or the least available) should not be idle. Feed the bottleneck. At the very least, it’s fun to think of the boss (lovingly) as the bottleneck.