Q 60. Single Piece Flow - (Flash Short Answer Question - Max 100 words answer, winner gets 1000 points - closes 8:30 PM IST on 2nd January 2018) -

 

Provide 3 great examples where single piece flow has made things better for us in daily life. The examples should be such where one piece flow was not used initially but made things better after it was introduced. 

 

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Assuming the 7 wastes that creep into production of goods/service are controlled within customer and business specifications, here are the three examples.

 

Appointments at various set ups (colleges, offices and businesses)where in restricting the exchange to an agreed upon time frame. This helps in effective time management and avoided queuing typically found in the open to all/first in and first out format.

Separate allocation in the IVRs/webspace for various categories of businesses and channels of communications. Hence avoiding wait time and improved handle time based on criticality of the cases.

Emphasis on one on one meetings rather than skip level meetings is another area where each individual is “listened and not heard”. This drive of ‘one at a time’ helps the sum of the parts to build up the synergy of the whole. Also taking care of the eight waste of poor employee skill management.

Single piece flow really useful for the industries like just in time production. First industry which comes in my mind is restaurants. Some times they cook huge quantity and kept ready to serve, now orders system implemented where orders will be taken first and produce the food and serve to customers. 

 

In banking before single flow huge choas in counters at branches because of dedicated counters, after introducing token system, customer service become smoother and variety of customers can be handled by any counter.

In IT offices, people print huge quantity of papers some, and will not collect many times will not collect it. These days Access card system implemented in printers, post swiping only printer will print the pages. And serve only who needs the print and saves huge cost to company 

 

"One Piece Flow" comes from Toyota. its helps any manufacturing industry to improve  1. Safety 2. Build Quality 3. Flexibility 4. Scalability 5. Excess inventory 6. Productivity 7. Material replenishment 8. Floor space 9. Employee moral & 10. makes kaizen take root. 

 

as it goes step by step its reduces waste. If any error/defect found it can be addressed there only before going for further steps, in this way it helps to identify the root of problems too. 

 

in our software industry it helps us 1. when we take requirements - by user stories & sizing them into proper modules and prioritizing. 2. when to build applications module by module so developers gets busy at their own module. Step by step, follows one piece flow. and 3. when we place any order to any restaurant or for marketing   

 

 

3 hours ago, Vishwadeep Khatri said:

Q 60. Single Piece Flow - (Flash Short Answer Question - Max 100 words answer, winner gets 1000 points - closes 8:30 PM IST on 2nd January 2018) -

 

Provide 3 great examples where single piece flow has made things better for us in daily life. The examples should be such where one piece flow was not used initially but made things better after it was introduced. 

 

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iN MY VIEW THE new arrangement in Passport office ( in Bangalore) is the best example of the single piece flow. Beofre there was utter chaos now it has been divided into A B C areas and the flow is smooth and single piece

Single piece flow means processing without any stoppage, waiting time and on demand/pull from the customer/user. In daily life , the 3 examples that I can think of - 

 

1) Adding extra smartbytes when your data(INTERNET) pack is over by buying few GBs or even KBs of data. Previously, we had to go to a shop to load currency to our cards in bulk, to use the internet/outgoing calls.

 

2) Internet Banking has enabled us to check our balance on demand (either mobile or laptop). Previously , we had to wait for the weekend to get our passbooks updated at one time (bulk processing), by going to bank and getting to know balance. (Some people prefer calling their bank manager even today to know the balance)

 

3) Viewing movies on demand in Netflix including original Netflix series , instead of waiting for it to be released in Theatres and view it in a group (batch processing). 

Following could be the examples of single piece flow from our day to day life:

1. Automated Car wash

2. Self checkout in a big grocery shop (like walmart)

3. Order processing in a restaurant or coffee shop.

Well explained by Prasad. All his examples show situations where there was a batch processing (a big lot was processed at one time) and has now given way to single piece flow.