Bells and Whistles

“Bells and Whistles” are the extras on a product…or on a process.

On a product, bells and whistles are the features that enhance the product, but don’t significantly change the function. Years ago, power windows were part of the bells and whistles packages that carmakers used to distinguish cars from their competitors. Recently, backup sensors and blind spot detection were the extras that are now becoming expected, with auto-drive features and heads-up displays becoming the bells and whistles. If you are reading this a few years into the future, you will be choosing from new features with all the items I mentioned now being standard equipment.

Features often drift from extras to essentials as customers come to expect the item and every competitor offers them.

Bells and whistles pose an interesting problem in Lean manufacturing, as the cycle time to add the product enhancement increases with each feature selected.

Simplicity in a Lean workplace is almost always better. That doesn’t mean you should not offer extras on your products. It just means that the product should make sense to offer and there should be a strategy about how to produce them.