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The article's story anecdote of "blue light" is about finding the true value in a process. Blue light means the welder is actually creating value in the produc

The article's story anecdote of "blue light" is about finding the true value in a process. Blue light means the welder is actually creating value in the product. Anything else in the process does not help build value to the product. It is all non-value added activities. The non-value added activities might be necessary such as setup, delivery, reposition or what not but it doesn't drive value. By maximizing the blue light welding operation it maximizes value being created. Maximizing value will minimize extraneous activities that don't help make a finished product and should decrease cycle time for the value-added activity. This all can be learned from The Goal by Goldgratt which is a story about theory of constraints. https://www.tocinstitute.org/the-goal-summary.html https://www.tocinstitute.org/the-goal-summary.html

sitkack 4y ago
Those are things are also necessary, they just don't require a welder to do them. All the talk of "value" will pollute your thinking and encourage you to be a productivity and value bigot.
- xyzelement 4y ago
  Can you explain what you mean by "productivity and value bigot?" In my mind productivity and value generation are major virtues that benefit the doer and society, big "bigot" has a negative connotation and I don't understand how it goes together.
  - thinkmcfly 4y ago
    Like a VC for instance. They are blood sucking leeches upon our society
    - xyzelement 4y ago
      Like I try not to get hung up on language but "value/productivity" and "leeches" are essentially antonyms.
      - Gigablah 4y ago
        I don’t see the contradiction? “Value/productivity bigot” = what they think “Leeches” = what they are
  - sitkack 4y ago
    Devaluing anything that isn't what the executive considers value. One wants optimize systems, not just increase the duty cycle of the thing that is expensive. By focusing on the only thing that one considers "adding value", the "non-value add" tasks and positions become viewed as low quality, low skilled and fungible. The person who fills and jigs the welder's pipeline is just as valuable from a systems perspective as the welders.
    - matt3D 4y ago
      Neglecting the person who fills the jigs will lead to less ur time in the long run though. I'm guessing your issue is not with those that are fixated on productivity, but those that are just poorly educated in the complexity of how to calculate it.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      Sometimes -- as I believe is true in the author's case -- these tasks and positions are low-skilled and fungible. The extra helper was lifting things, moving and arranging things, and peeling the plastic wrappers off new parts. Nearly any able-bodied worker can do those tasks, and they don't require much skill. That doesn't mean they have no value to the overall process; obviously they do. But there's a big difference between finding and hiring a trained welder (or training someone up), and finding any random worker who can lift things and follow some basic instructions. Absolutely agree with you that focusing only on the "value add" tasks can cause blindness. But that doesn't make the other "non value add" tasks somehow high-skill, high-quality, difficult-to-replace tasks.
      - sitkack 4y ago
        > these tasks and positions are low-skilled and fungible. Any task requiring or being > 100% better when done with more than one person is now a team. We are now optimizing team output and talking about low-skill is no longer an accurate description of the problem. It also under attributes how important having a quality fitment/parts prep person could be to the quality and pace of the output. Adding another person can make the work 2x or more productive. If they can spot problems before they get to the welding stage, even more. When I was young and while I was probably the A-team of the B players in the org, I romanticized about what it would be like to be in a high performing org of all A-players. This thinking is flawed, it devalues the importance of the b-players and puts an outsized importance on the high value heroes. That prep person may be fungible on day zero, but by the end of the week, they should be a high functioning team member. The value bigot will say that the person that only preps the pipeline should only be paid X/hr because the work is low-skill. But their value to the system is much higher. We should be thinking in systems ant labels about what each component of that system is worth.
mannykannot 4y ago
> Blue light means the welder is actually creating value in the product. Anything else in the process does not help build value to the product. So when the downturn comes, fire the trade assistant.

sitkack 4y ago

Those are things are also necessary, they just don't require a welder to do them. All the talk of "value" will pollute your thinking and encourage you to be a productivity and value bigot.

xyzelement 4y ago
Can you explain what you mean by "productivity and value bigot?" In my mind productivity and value generation are major virtues that benefit the doer and society, big "bigot" has a negative connotation and I don't understand how it goes together.
- thinkmcfly 4y ago
  Like a VC for instance. They are blood sucking leeches upon our society
  - xyzelement 4y ago
    Like I try not to get hung up on language but "value/productivity" and "leeches" are essentially antonyms.
    - Gigablah 4y ago
      I don’t see the contradiction? “Value/productivity bigot” = what they think “Leeches” = what they are
- sitkack 4y ago
  Devaluing anything that isn't what the executive considers value. One wants optimize systems, not just increase the duty cycle of the thing that is expensive. By focusing on the only thing that one considers "adding value", the "non-value add" tasks and positions become viewed as low quality, low skilled and fungible. The person who fills and jigs the welder's pipeline is just as valuable from a systems perspective as the welders.
  - matt3D 4y ago
    Neglecting the person who fills the jigs will lead to less ur time in the long run though. I'm guessing your issue is not with those that are fixated on productivity, but those that are just poorly educated in the complexity of how to calculate it.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Sometimes -- as I believe is true in the author's case -- these tasks and positions are low-skilled and fungible. The extra helper was lifting things, moving and arranging things, and peeling the plastic wrappers off new parts. Nearly any able-bodied worker can do those tasks, and they don't require much skill. That doesn't mean they have no value to the overall process; obviously they do. But there's a big difference between finding and hiring a trained welder (or training someone up), and finding any random worker who can lift things and follow some basic instructions. Absolutely agree with you that focusing only on the "value add" tasks can cause blindness. But that doesn't make the other "non value add" tasks somehow high-skill, high-quality, difficult-to-replace tasks.
    - sitkack 4y ago
      > these tasks and positions are low-skilled and fungible. Any task requiring or being > 100% better when done with more than one person is now a team. We are now optimizing team output and talking about low-skill is no longer an accurate description of the problem. It also under attributes how important having a quality fitment/parts prep person could be to the quality and pace of the output. Adding another person can make the work 2x or more productive. If they can spot problems before they get to the welding stage, even more. When I was young and while I was probably the A-team of the B players in the org, I romanticized about what it would be like to be in a high performing org of all A-players. This thinking is flawed, it devalues the importance of the b-players and puts an outsized importance on the high value heroes. That prep person may be fungible on day zero, but by the end of the week, they should be a high functioning team member. The value bigot will say that the person that only preps the pipeline should only be paid X/hr because the work is low-skill. But their value to the system is much higher. We should be thinking in systems ant labels about what each component of that system is worth.

mannykannot 4y ago

> Blue light means the welder is actually creating value in the product. Anything else in the process does not help build value to the product. So when the downturn comes, fire the trade assistant.