Functional Blindness

This Lean affliction is characterized by seeing things as useful only in a single, prescribed use. In many cases, this is true. In some cases, this is not the case.

As a simple, real world example, a plastic milk jug can be cut to form a scoop. You can use quart, half-gallon, or gallon sized depending on the application. These scoops could be used to for dog food, potting soil, or whatever else you want.

In continuous improvement projects, most people doing the frontline work are not engineers. They are talented at their own jobs and may have some other skills from different parts of their lives. But they often have to get creative in how they apply the resources at their disposal.

There is a somewhat derogatory term called ‘catalog engineer’ which describes people who look for standard solutions to problems that they can find in the pages of a product listing from an industrial supply company. The truth is that many of those solutions work for the middle of the bell curve, but that is not the region where continuous improvement operates. Standard problems with standard solutions have likely been solved long ago. Most continuous improvement efforts operate in the realm of the unusual.

So, get creative in terms of how you look at problems. Think in terms of function. If you need a small tool lifted, don’t immediately think ‘tool balancer’. They can be expensive and might be overkill. Think ‘hold’ or ‘lift’ or ‘suspend’ or ‘retract’.

And then think about what items do those functions. You might find that a $1.99 retractable cord for a keyring or keycard works just as well for a small screwdriver as a $100 tool balancer.