As Time Goes By

Editorial Board Bill Baker Speed to Excellence S.S. "Cheri" Cherukuri Cherukuri & Associates Sherrie Ford Power Partners, Inc. Chris J. Fosse Terex Corporation Michael Harding Michael Harding & Associates Anthony C. Laraia David Mann Steelcase Inc. Dave Nelson Delphi Automotive Systems Cash Powell, Jr. C.S. Powell, Inc. William A. Sandras, Jr. Productivity Centers International Richard J. Schonberger Schonberger & Associates Kenneth J. Stork Ken Stork & Associates James P. Womack Lean Enterprise Institute As Time Goes By Message from the Editor-in-Chief After many decades, I recently saw again that classic WWII movie,   Casablanca with itsCasablanca. To children learningClockspeed defined 6 Target Volume 24, Number 2   dreamy theme song, "As Time Goes By." What struck me was how the song helped weave a theme of events covering no more than six years stretching into an eternity. Less than four decades earlier, Einstein had deduced that time is relative, measurable only by motion relative to an observer. For most purposes time is measured by solar system motion as we see it. One exception is satellite communications, which must factor in the speed of light. Now, time is officially measured by the motion of "vibrating atoms," and the timing of everything we do is pegged to scales taken from that. But if we had no pattern of motion to measure by, time would have no meaning - cease to exist. Like physical time, human perception of the passage of time is relative to the observer. It seems to be marked by significant changes, as in very fast, time passes slowly (Are we there yet?). To oldsters, it seems to rush by. A few self-recognize that because they are slower, everything else just appears to be happening faster. That is, each person's perception of time depends on the gap between active learning events. Given that, it's no surprise that neither children nor senior citizens with few learning opportunities progress very well. Process improvements are kaizen learning events. Technology development and new product development are sequences of learning events. If the intervals between events are long, learning progress is slow. People forget how. If changes come too fast for people to actually master, they are overwhelmed. Process improvement may be the initial objective of lean, but to sustain it, people must learn how to make changes better and faster - increase their learning speed. To do that, reduce the interval between improvements, standardizing gains so that they are actually held. One-shot kaizen events create no base upon which to increase the pace of learning. Charlie Fine's book it as the interval between introducing new products. Long intervals like Boeing meant slow clockspeed; short intervals like Intel were fast clockspeed. Now dig a little deeper. How many significant learning events must occur for either company to field a new design? That's an impressively huge number in both cases, but Boeing must integrate more parts from more sources into a new design. In both companies, design flaws or process flaws could result in catastrophe, so all possibilities must be investigated. Doing all that is a learning sequence too. The first objective is to learn more about how "lean learning" has to involve developing people throughout an entire organization. Assuming that lean is a few techniques that can be grafted into an existing mode of work for everyone else merely sets up its stagnation - as time goes by very slowly for people uninvolved in this learning. Robert. W. Hall, Editor-in-Chief Target