Single Piece Flow Game - Understanding the Principles and Logic of Single Piece Flow

Hi,

Was wondering if anyone can help

I personally understand the principles and logic behind single piece flow so have no issues there but I am looking for a game that i can deliver the idea and principles of Single Piece Flow to shop floor and management at the same time.

I have done a number of these games myself with outside consultants but obviously the games that come are complex and usually have hundreds of pieces (bricks, lego etc). So i am looking for something low cost in terms of consumables but will still get the point across.

Please if anyone does suggest a game please feel free to add more so i have a choice and pick one that i feel suitable.

I have maximum 4 hours to do this so any game will have to be reletive to this time scale.

Thanks in Advance
C

Re: Single Piece Flow Game

To illustrate the idea of single piece flow, there are lots of the brick and Lego based exercises that all typically last about 4 hours (will be running one next week).

But here is one that really shows it and is not a "manufacturing" example, so it can be used with about any audience and only takes about 20 minutes:

You'll need about 10-12 participants for this.

Have 2 "teams" of 5 people each volunteer to play along. If you have enough people, assign a "timer" to each team to record the step-wise cycle times.

Have each team sit or be arranged in a row so they can hand items down the line. Each 'team' member will need a pen and a block of sticky notes (Post-Its, reg to 3M).

The target or goal is to produce 5 complete orders, error free, where an order is a sticky note with each of the 5 weekdays written on it (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday).

Team A's process is for person 1 to write 'Monday' on each of 5 sticky notes. Only when all 5 have 'Monday' written on them can person 1 pass the orders to person 2. Person 2 writes 'Tuesday' on each of the 5 notes and can only pass to person 3 when all 5 have been done. The continues across all 5 people on the team. Once the 5th person completes their task (writing 'Friday' on all 5) they hand the "orders" to you and stop.

Team B's process is for person 1 to write " Monday" on the first note, then pass it to person 2. Person 2 writes "Tuesday" on the note and then passes it to person 3... and so on. After person 1 has passed the first note to person 2, they begin work on the second note and pass that along once their task is completed. This continues until Team B's person 5 has written 'Friday' on the 5th note. They then hand the "orders" to you and stop.

You then, along with the times and balance of participants graph the step by step cycle times and the overall cycle, or completion time so they can all clearly see the difference between traditional batch processes and single piece flow.

You can then follow this exercise up with some facilitated discussion - get the participants to talk through how the processes in their business really work and how they could work. You can also add in some 'product quality' bits - given that we did not specify here how and where the weekdays need to be written/placed on the note.

Hope it helps.

Cheers,

Adam

Re: Single Piece Flow Game - Understanding the Principles and Logic of Single Piece F

Try this box simulation.

This is a site for lean simulations.

Re: Single Piece Flow Game - Understanding the Principles and Logic of Single Piece F

Sorry for my English.

Here is an absolutely low cost game to demonstrate the advantages of one piece flow:

The envelope game.

You have 3 stations with 1 operator/station.
Station 1: Folding the paper
Station 2: Putting the paper into envelope and sealing the envelope
Station 3: Stamping and postmarking the envelope

Everybody supplied with a written short decription of the task. Talking to each other is not allowed, only if somebody receives a deficient product from previous station. In this case he/she hands it back and explains what is the problem.

Round 1: You are the customer and place an order: need 30 pcs of closed, stamped envelope with folded paper inside.
In every station there is mass production.
Op 1: Folding 30 pcs of paper, when finished passing them to Op 2.
Op 2: Putting 30 pcs of paper into envelopes one by one and sealing the envelopes. When finished passing them to Op3.
Op 3: Stamping and postmarking the envelopes

You have to measure the time when you get the first finished product. This time will be the same when you’ll get the 30 envelopes in a batch. (because of the batch production)

Round 2: The same situation like in round1, but we have one piece flow on the stations. Measure the time when you get the first envelope from Op3 and also measure when the whole process is finished!

It is optional that you give a short description for Op2: From the 21st of folded paper, Op1 must change the way of folding: if Op1 folded the papers starting from shorter side, from 21st of paper have to start the folding from the longer side. It is good way to demonstrate that much easier to detect the mistakes earlier if process is working in „one peace flow”-way. (And let's be plain: many times the leaders give wrong intructions. Or good insturctions but for wrong operator... )

Good luck, lean thinkers.