Sep 10 2016
How to Pick the Fastest Line at the Supermarket | New York Times [Debunk]
“[…] Choose a single line that leads to several cashiers
Not all lines are structured this way, but research has largely shown that this approach, known as a serpentine line, is the fastest. The person at the head of the line goes to the first available window in a system often seen at airports or banks. […]”
Sourced through the New York Times
Michel Baudin‘s comments:
No! Research shows no such thing. The serpentine line does not reduce the customers’ mean time through the system. Little’s Law tells us that, in steady state, regardless of how the queue is organized:
Nov 22 2016
If Talk Of Probability Makes Your Eyes Glaze Over…
Few terms cause manufacturing professionals’ eyes to glaze over like “probability.” They perceive it as a complicated theory without much relevance to their work. It is nowhere to be found in the Japanese literature on production systems and supply chains, or in the American literature on Lean. Among influential American thinkers on manufacturing, Deming was the only one to focus on it, albeit implicitly, when he made “Knowledge of Variation” one of the four components of his System of Profound Knowledge (SoPK).
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By Michel Baudin • Data science • 1 • Tags: Deming, Lean, Manufacturing, Operations Research, Probability