Momentum and inertia

Small changes today can mean greater success tomorrow.

By Jim Apple, Partner, The Progress Group -- Modern Materials Handling, 6/1/2006

The NCAA basketball tournament earlier this year caused me to start to think about the value of momentum and its relationship to manufacturing and distribution operations.

Clearly, in sports, we think of momentum in a positive way. For example, "We've got momentum going into this game." Without that momentum, no team will make it all the way to the finals.

Similarly, we have momentum in our operations. It enables us to come in to work each day and not have to start planning from scratch. We have demand. We have materials and products flowing into the facility. And we will use the same processes today that we did yesterday. Momentum will carry us through.

Absent outside influences, our momentum becomes strong inertia. That is, we will continue to travel in the same direction at the same pace. And, that's a comfortable place to be—until someone comes along to challenge us. Then, it's often necessary to change our course.

Too much inertia may make changing how we do things difficult. We hear things like: "But, we've always done it that way," or "We tried that once, and it didn't work."

Too little momentum, and it's difficult to change direction. In a project meeting recently, one of the team members observed that, "It's hard to steer a sailboat if there is no wind."

So, then I wondered, can we have an environment where there is momentum for change itself? Can we create a place where we come in each day with the confidence that our inertia will assure today's success, but with an expectation that we will find something to change to make the operation better tomorrow?

I was once exposed to a theory of improvement that advocated making a small change in the operation. If the results from making the change were positive, then we should continue the change at a slightly stronger level.

If the results were negative, we could revert to the former operation and try a different small change. My recollection is that it was called "perturbation theory," based on the small challenges to the status quo.

Sporting such an adventuresome attitude, significant positive changes are bound to surface over the course of time.

For example, you might start by combining two operations in a process sequence or by changing a batch size. Neither would threaten today's success, but might point toward a worthwhile operations improvement in the long term.

Our ultimate goal can be set high. The old comparison of value-added vs. non-value-added time tells us that. How many hours are spent in a warehouse just getting product ready to pick? In many cases, it's one hour of support for each hour of picking. What is yours?

Making continuous improvements is critical to your company's success. Every day we read about those who rested on their laurels and slowly slipped into obscurity or were taken over by a more aggressive competitor.

When a team is losing momentum, expectations diminish. When they are gaining momentum, we expect them to win.

Do you have the right balance between inertia and momentum for change in your operation?