Daniel Hetherington

Dan – amazing post! Yes we definitely jinxed each other with our topics. You did such a fantastic job explaining why the investment up front in process – especially for high stakes industry – means a world of different in time and money in the end. The semiconductor example is also a good one and I would think any other business that has to buy in bulk – perhaps fashion? And make significant investment at one time would definitely need that heavy investment in process initially.

Daniel,
I watched this movie a few years ago and agree that it is a great example of process innovation. I believe the food industry is going through another revolution now in terms of service and perhaps the mom-and-pop restaurants can use some of McDonald’s ideas to better serve customers in a social distanced world. I certainly hope the restaurants that do not have drive through, continue to allow for online ordering and curbside pick up. It has been a blessing to have lots of choices besides McDonalds at a time when cooking seems like one more thing we don’t have the energy for.

Your post made me think of how process innovation is changing rapidly in the world of Covid-19. I have a friend who also works in higher education and we were laughing about how our colleges have been talking about options for working remotely for years. Normally, the process to develop such a policy would take at least six committees and probably six years to implement and yet, nearly every educational institution did it in seven days in March 2020. The things we are learning in this time are huge. I have more people show up to meetings virtually than I did in person. People are on time to meetings because there is no need for walking and transfer times as if I was in the office. I’ve added hours into my day because I’m not commuting (plus my car is getting about 30-days to the gallon!). I’m able to easily record meetings and send out to everyone on the team. Our internal-communication at the college has improved immensely due to the sudden use of Zoom and other technologies. We are using document signing tools and have quickly moved to digital forms rather than the old paper shuffle routines. In my mind – I see us on a tennis court with chalk marking out all the ways we can use remote working to make our industry more efficient.

Thanks for the post and reminder of a good movie.
Jill

Great movie choice that explores decomposition and testing process improvement techniques (agile iteration), plus I think it’s good entertainment too. McDonald’s continues to iterate in reaction to covid-19. They prepared a 59-page guide for reopening: https://www.wsj.com/articles/mcdonalds-sets-conditions-for-restaurant-reopenings-11589466556