The Airframe Stress Analysis Department
At first, the always-overloaded Stress Analysts refused to put their work in the Critical Chain plans. The development of structural loads is and always will be on the Critical Chain. We chose to exempt them from the CCPM networks under the belief that they already understood their role and were working on the highest priority tasks.
But then the Stress Analysts, the most heavily loaded resource, found out that they were the system constraint. That gave them a new insight because this constraint determines the system output. If they are slowed down, the system is slowed down. If the constraint goes faster, the system goes faster. If they could get more done, the system would be more productive.
Leads typically dumped large batches of late drawings on the Stress Analysts, expecting them to get them out fast. Alternatively, the Leads would send one drawing at a time requiring Stress Analysts to evaluate as many as 300 similar drawings one-at-a-time. This caused the analysts to mark up a drawing, and later to mark up a very similar drawing for the same mistake. Then they would get the reworked drawings again — one-at-a-time. Not only was this tedious but also demoralizing!
Some Stress Analysts had learned the benefit of reviewing families of drawings, a technique known as Accelerated Stress Reviews. They felt that this could work in this situation also. So, as the system constraint, the Stress Analysts used their power. They demanded that the Leads bring only a full batch of similar drawings for review.
That required Leads to accomplish their work in a short time. The only way to get a batch of drawings done in time was to borrow and loan resources. Normally, this was rarely done because loaned resources rarely seemed to return. However, they had no choice. They loaned resources to other Leads that were getting ready for stress reviews.
This way, the stress group was able to increase their effective capacity by working on batches of similar drawings. They would mark up one drawing and check for similar issues with the others. They sent the batch back to the Lead to rework them all. It was all very simple, and very effective.
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Introducing The Breakfast Club
