Depot Improvement Model: Imbedded Info vs. Imbedded Time

Why is it so hard to implement change in military depots? And what can visuality teach us about a better way? This week on Visual Workplace Radio, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, shares her insights and findings related to implementing improvement in overhaul-and-repair. Success in this venue doesn’t just impact the bottom line. It impacts our military mission because depots refurbish and upgrade military equipment that just left the field of war—and must return there, reliably and with speed. Depots are archetypal low-volume/high-complexity work environments, where intricacy floods a vast physical workplace, with far too many details and barely a trace of flow. Years of effort and tons of money have been invested in an attempt to bring lean principles and practices to depots. Few have succeeded. As Dr. Galsworth explains, the fault is not in the operational goal but in the absence of a visual-lean change protocol customized to the depot setting.Tune in/learn more.