Flow Where You Can and Pull Where You Must

Create flow across an extended enterprise (from suppliers through customers).

Practitioners: tactical, integrative, and strategic

The idea of flow is often misunderstood. The idea gets tangled up with one piece v. batch, and encounters either/or thinking rather than both/and thinking. Flow where you can, push where you must. The first interpretation of the today’s topix might challenge us to flow all the way, and that is not what we are after. So, flow where you can, push where you must.

What exactly does the idea of flow challenge us to do? As I learned to build processes with flow, I was taught to see a part move through a process without stopping once it was introduced. There are going to be stops along the way.

There are so many reasons flow is helpful. Flow helps us to highlight waste. It must be addressed to keep things moving forward. It requires less inventory if there are fewer stops along the way, where inventory can pool or pile up. These are tactical implications of understanding and implementing a flow philosophy.

Flow Where You Can

What about the value streams that lay outside your four walls. Suppliers and customers can benefit from flow, too. When organizations become better at identifying opportunities and applying flow within their organizations’ wall, they can offer the value and benefits of flow to their suppliers and customers and help themselves in the process. A stable end-to-end value stream is beneficial to everyone that participates.

This idea then encounters mapping. If we build maps from end to end, we can begin to see where flow is possible and where push is required. From that point of view, we can challenge the value stream to find ways of expanding flow, reducing inventory, and gain all the additional value that process flow has to offer.

Flow is a tactical perspective that should be challenged from the process owner and sponsor perspectives. By examining value stream maps, we can explore the opportunities to flow more and push less. There is always a benefit to stressing the system.