In an earlier blog we talked about the Lean concept of Cadence in organic terms as a heartbeat.  And then we moved out of the comfort of that pat analogy to suggest that other periodic organic processes might serve as a better analogy of cadence in Product Development in consideration of its extended cycle times. Today let’s move back to the analogy of the heartbeat and explore the concept of Perfect Cadence.

If we look at takt time on a production line as a two beat cycle — in one cycle the line advances, in the other the value adding tasks are executed – the heartbeat and our circulatory flow do serve as clarifying models for the Lean elements of Cadence and Flow.

Heartbeats have been in the news recently with the minor dustup over the suspicions of privilege in Dick Cheney’s successful heart transplant.  Below that opinionated noise there is a far more interesting story, and one that has caused my Lean head to spin — continuously — and to muse.  This other story begs the question of what would happen to the relationship of Cadence to Flow, and to our heartbeat analogy if there were no driving beat but rather continuous flow.

Prior to his heart transplant, Dick Cheney had an LVAD (left ventricle assist device) implanted to help support his failing heart and to keep him alive until a candidate heart could be found.  There are over 10,000 heart disease patients who now have one of these LVADs embedded.

The development and adoption of artificial hearts have been constrained by the rapid wear and tear on the implanted mechanical pumps, as well as by the difficulties of supplying power to the devices. The hundred days of life extension given to Barney Clark by the Jarvik 7 heart in the 1970’s set a course for medical engineering research, but the goal of a natural life with an artificial heart has remained unfulfilled.  Because of the practical limitations of artificial hearts, they have been used exclusively as devices to prolong life while patients waited for an available heart for transplant.

In the 1980’s, a doctor-engineer was inspired by an experience he recalled. A decade earlier on a volunteer mission to Africa, he had observed how water was pulled from wells by an Archimedes Screw, essentially an auger in a pipe. His inspiration and subsequent research led to the development of heart devices that moved blood not by pumping, but by means of compact turbines. Early fears that the rotating blades of the turbine would do damage to blood cells were allayed and this technology became the basis for LVADs.

LVADs are not intended as artificial hearts, but rather as ‘crutches’ for diseased hearts.  Because of their compact technology they provided mobility and freedom from hospitalization for patients awaiting transplant. Astonishingly, LVADs also demonstrated the ability to help reverse heart disease apparently in the same way a crutch relieves the burden on a leg and lets it heal.  But even greater astonishment awaited as the LVAD patient population grew and flourished.

In 2003, a patient from Central America came to the United States and was fitted with an LVAD. Communicating through a language barrier, he misunderstood the instructions for him to return frequently.  Upon release from the hospital, he disappeared. A year later, he returned for a checkup and explained that he had not returned sooner because he felt so great.  During his physical, astonishingly, he had no pulse.  His heart had given out entirely and he was being kept alive solely by the circulation provided by his implanted turbine.

Since that experience, an artificial heart based upon dual turbines has been developed and has been implanted successfully into a small number of patients as a treatment of last resort.  For now, those patients thrive and there is optimism that research has embarked on a path to a practical, long lasting artificial heart.

The circulation that results from these turbine-based artificial hearts gives continuous flow (Perfect Flow?) but no pulse, no cadence.  The critical value-add process of gas exchange in the lungs can be accomplished as the blood flows continuously. So does Perfect Cadence result from the absence of the no-value-added-but-necessary half of our two part cycle? Is it achieved when we are able to provide all necessary value contributions under the condition of continuous flow?  I think in theory it is, but as I try to visualize this in practice the only image I can summon is Lucille Ball laboring and stuffing her face at the candy factory.

Cadence is often a conscious feature.  We consciously create cadence to regulate workflow.  This enabling control feature also carries a cost, and the cost is that it keeps us from Perfect Flow.  If Perfect Cadence is that which enables Perfect Flow, then the approach to Perfect Cadence is the cadence that results as the duration of the no-value-added-but-necessary part of the cycle approaches a limit of zero.  This may not exist in the organic model that we choose to apply to our knowledge work, but it likely has conceptual value in areas like production where, like in the world of medical devices, both organic and mechanical models apply concurrently.

Cadence.

In the world of Lean, the timing of the complex dance of syncopated work is managed through cadence.

The most visible and familiar example of cadence in Lean systems is the concept of takt time that controls the production line. The work of each station along a production line or in a work cell is executed within the same time-duration bounding-box. The concept of cadence enables load leveling, the act of shifting work from one production workstation to a neighbor so that the time of execution at all workstations can be balanced to fit into the shortest, most efficient takt time. The most efficient takt time produces the most efficient total cycle time and serves the high-level goals of Lean production systems.

One of the five fundamental principles of Lean is Flow, the uninterrupted movement of value across boundaries. Cadence is the heartbeat that determines the flux of value within the system. The analogy of a heartbeat is doubly appropriate.

Like a heartbeat, the cadence of production has a systolic stage that forces flow, as work in progress moves from one station to then next. And the cadence has a diastolic stage of low flow pressure, during the execution of the tasks at each station.

The second valuable aspect of the analogy of the heartbeat is its organic nature. With increasing focus on knowledge work and management efforts to humanize the workplace in the pursuit of greater productivity, mechanical models have been increasingly displaced by organic, systemic models. And so the heart organ replaces the ticking clock or the metronome as the timing event.

In Lean Product Development also, cadence serves to both coordinate and drive the timing of events. But unlike in the manufacture and assembly of product, the cycle times of product development are much longer and the model of the beat-per-second human heart is useful, but less insightful. An example of the use of cadence in Lean Product Development is the use of Integrating Events in Set Based Concurrent Design. These events are used to put innovation ‘on a clock’ but in a way that is not counterproductive to the creative work.

The period of this development cadence extends over several weeks. For what kind of creature does this describe their heartbeat? Obviously, none, and so some other organic cadence function likely serves as a better model. The menstrual cycle leaps to mind — appropriate by period of cadence, by its somewhat variable regularity, and by its key role in the creative (innovation?) process. Of interest to me is the time variance between the two strokes of the integration event cycle, if fact of any cadenced cycle. It gets me thinking.

In a heartbeat, the two halves of the ‘lub-dub’ cycle are approximately equal in duration. In a factory setting, the division of takt time between the task of adding value and the task of movement to the next station are ideally not approximately equal in time, but rather the value-add time is maximized and the non-value-add-but-necessary time is minimized.

Allow me to detour for a quick, justification side bar here. A common caution to Lean practitioners is to avoid blindly applying the tools of Lean, but rather to use them with an understanding of the underlying principles that guide their application, the ‘why’ of the tools. Like the standards that we have developed to make our work more efficient and more effective, the principles of Lean themselves must be analyzed and sometimes challenged in the cause of continuous improvement. And so I embark on a perhaps Quixotic dive into thinking about flow and cadence.

My thinking calls into focus another fundamental principle of Lean, the pursuit of Perfection. Principle based Lean practitioners recognize Perfection, the idealized future state, as being more of a compass heading than a destination. And so the question is begged, what is Perfect Flow? Is it the reduction to zero of non-value-add but perhaps-necessary time? And if that is so, does that mean no movement (so no flow) or that value-add can be done during movement? We’ll rip this apart in our next blog. And we invite you to send your thoughts on this and all future blogs in to us to help guide our thinking and our learning.

And so as we speak of the next blog and of the value of cadence, we are announcing that we will now put a cadence to our postings, to make it easier and more predictable for those who wish to follow. We will put up some new thoughts on the first and third Tuesdays of the month, with the occasional ‘organic’ variation to our regularity. And on occasion, we may throw up an intermediary blog as we get something off our mind and into words. And, again, we are interested in your feedback, so please share your thoughts with us.

You may or may not have heard of the term Extensioneering. We believe it was coined by one of our customers when he explained how we work with his internal engineering team. We literally became an extension of his group. Little did we know at the time, but it says a lot about how the Design and Engineering group at EAC approaches projects and working relationships with customers.

We now like to refer to what we do as ‘Extensioneering’ rather than consulting or outsourcing as these terms tend to have a stigma attached to them.

Outsourcing your Engineering Projects

In reality, what do you think of when you hear outsourcing;

• Why would I let someone else do my work?
• I don’t want to tell someone how to do it or explain what I need when I can do it myself.
• They won’t get it right.
• Outsource… doesn’t that mean to send it off to China or overseas?
• Toss it over the wall and see what comes back.

Some of the comments or statements may be true in certain situations. Some of these ideas stem from poor experiences in the past. And the worst may just be due to job security. Most of the bad rap that outsourcing or consulting gets is due to poorly set expectations. You should never have to lower the expectations of what you will be getting from your outsource partner, but do discuss expectations with them from the onset before any work is actually performed.  Doing this early will ensure you get a project completed and the deliverables will meet your needs.

I can’t tell you that outsourcing or extensioneering is the right solution for your company or project and I would like to tell you to send all your overflow, R&D type of projects to us (this is what we do) but that’s not the point of this post.

Design and Engineer Outsourcing Options

So here are some simple things to think about when choosing a design outsource (Extensioneering) partner;

• What is the communication schedule that you will have on the project?
• How responsive were they when you approached them on the project?
• In the discussion of the project, were they truly interested in the project? Will they provide some amount of potential education back to you (if needed) or vice versa?
• How many resources can be applied, both from your company and the potential design partner?
• What have they worked on before  It’s not always a bad thing if they haven’t done “what you do”. This allows for some out of the box thinking and fresh approaches.
• What software is to be used? Not just the CAD, but the data and project management aspect as well.
• What is the expected timeline for the project? Remember that the design partner schedule may also be dependent on what you can provide them in regards to communication and reviews.

Check out more about our Design and Engineering Services here.