Good reading, Mr. Sproull: though the title may remind some 007's movie, very fashionable in Italy these days, I think you got it. It's years I envisage management systems as flows or streams, as a continuum, however. I'm a chemist, flows are a second nature to me: when I see Logistics to be applied to transportation and warehousing only, I judge it a big waste. I therefore welcome an innovating point of view. Thank you.  

Bob, I cannot agree with you more. Many Lean/Six Sigma practitioners seem to think that because they have been trained in all these tools – they have to use them. The “KISS” principle still applies …Keep it Simple and Straightforward!”. Marshall Ariza, our North American COE and a Master Black Belt says this about “bottlenecks” .... … In Eli Goldratt’s book “The Goal”, the main character learns about the bottleneck (i.e., the slowest part of a process) by observing his son’s friends on a hike. Each boy hiked at a different speed and consequently were strung out all over the trail. From time to time, they all had to stop and wait for the stragglers to catch up. It wasn’t until the slowest boy, Herbie, was moved to the front of the line that everyone began to march at the same consistent pace. Since they didn’t have to wait and reorganize as much, they made faster overall progress and finished sooner. The learning is clear – the bottleneck controls both the speed and output of the entire process. Yet it never ceases to amaze us to see how many improvement projects are worked everywhere except the bottleneck. In fact, many organizations do not know where their bottleneck is. By quickly identified the bottleneck, projects can be strategically chosen (as opposed to being someone’s pet project). This projects by design will then logically “move the needle” on the organization’s key metrics. (see http://synergisticexcellence.com/reasons-why-lean-six-sigma-fails for full article) Ariza believes that Synergistic’s reduction of Cause Analysis to its rock – bottom basics is an essential part of the “secret sauce” that differentiates Synergistic from other Lean-based change programs. Our underlying philosophy is that project build quality plus maintenance are the two factors crucial to optimum plant performance. We use an inexpensive, yet still cutting edge computer managed maintenance system (CMMS) to each week identify and prioritise the Assets that are consuming the most maintenance hours, and the five most outstanding backlogged work orders. In the manner of Ivy Lee with Charles Schwab at Bethlehem Steel, we prioritize the assets for attention, work on the top listed asset until it is either finished or we cannot progress at that moment, and then and only then, move on to the next asset. The report on the outstanding backlogged work orders allow us to decide whether we can catch up by better utilizing the resources we have, or whether we have to bring in additional resources. There are no other choices! And if we can utilize existing resources, that indicates that planning and scheduling need work, as it is apparent that we are not maximizing use of windows of opportunity. By auctioning the top ten failing assets, we very rapidly get to the point where maintenance is no longer chasing breakdowns, but can actually come up to speed with scheduled work, which also lifts production as reliability increases. Typically we find an ROI on this process somewhere inside 12 months – Often as little as six! Best regards, Denis Backhouse