Whacky-Takty

Wacky Takt: Why You’re Using Takt Systems to Push and How to Stop

This is going to be a fun little podcast, but it’s going to be really packed with good information, new information, probably stuff you haven’t heard before. The other thing we’re going to cover is Goodhart’s Law. Let’s get going.

Wacky Takt. This is something Jason kind of coined the term on in Germany. It was because they were thinking about the possible failure to implement Takt in the right way and they actually saw this in one location. Most of the time in their trip they saw really great world class examples of flow and pull. In one facility, which he won’t tell you where it came from, they saw an example of what they call Wacky Takt.

It’s kind of in line with if you’ve ever heard of Laffy Taffy or Wacky Taffy. There’s some really fun little candy that Jason used to eat when he was a kid that was kind of goofy and weird and just off the beaten path a little bit. It was a little bit whacked and kind of out there.

He’s seen and would fear in the future to see some wacky Takt plan implementation that’s just kind of out there. That’s what we’re going to talk about today because there are ways to get this wrong. Before we do that, Jason wants to insert a little section about Goodhart’s Law.

When a Measure Becomes a Target It Ceases to Be a Good Measure

Goodhart’s Law is an adage named after British economist Charles Goodhart who advanced the idea in a 1975 article on monetary policy in the United Kingdom: Problems of Monetary Management, the UK Experience. “Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.”

In a paper published in 1997, anthropologist Marilyn Strathern generalized Goodhart’s Law beyond statistics and control to evaluation more broadly. The phrase commonly referred to as Goodhart’s Law comes from Strathern’s paper, not from any of Goodhart’s writings.

This is what it is: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” One way in which this can occur is individuals trying to anticipate the effect of a policy and then taking actions that alter its course and outcome.

Let’s stick with this one sentence: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Jason’s seen this before when we’re talking about production KPIs, measurements for safety and quality. This is really what he’s talking about embodied in this example.

First of all, let’s talk about what is a KPI. A KPI is a quantifiable measure used to evaluate the success of an organization, employee, etc., in meeting objectives for performance. A target is a measurement state or condition that indicates a predetermined goal has been reached.

What this law is essentially saying is that KPIs become useless when the KPIs also become targets. Let Jason talk about that just for a minute. If you have a production goal and you want to measure, this is a key performance indicator, and you make a goal out of that key performance indicator, maybe on a scale, on that KPI scale you say 10 of a certain something is your target. Well, it stops being an indicator once it becomes a target because once the target is reached then human beings will typically stop.

Jason likes the Japanese concept: perfection is the goal, perfect will have to do. Perfect is the only standard and are we getting better each day, better than the next? Because once we set a target then typically people will stop. It becomes a thermostat. If you set a thermostat to 76 degrees and the temperature gets higher, it will regulate back.

If you have a KPI and then you set a target along that KPI and you go past that KPI to really wild success, it will thermostat back to the target. Jason saw this one time where when you’re doing production tracking and the production target is reached, foreman, workers, superintendents, project teams will stop once the target is reached even though they could make more money. So it thermostats them to a certain level and below because there’s always variation.

Jason likes that concept in Goodhart’s Law: when a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure. The bottom line is we always have to plan for variation and we have to keep going in a lean concept towards perfection, total participation. We have to keep going to where we understand that we’re better every day than we were the day before.

The Manufacturing Plant Where Everything Was Off Rhythm

What we’re really talking about today is Wacky Takt. Jason really likes the title there. It’s hard to say, it’s kind of funny. The conflict is we’re still using Takt systems to push and we have to stop this practice. Let Jason tell you a story. He was in a manufacturing facility and they were looking at the operations. There were areas of excess inventory and there was a lot of waste and people moving around. Things just seemed to be off rhythm.

What they found out was there were some bottlenecks. Jason’s talked to you about this before. There were some bottlenecks in the system and there weren’t pull systems. Meaning when one piece of equipment was completed, they weren’t automatically pulling or creating pull throughout the system. Each piece of equipment, each station, was still pushing material and inventory onto the next system because they were attempting to keep up with a Takt time. Jason wants to be really clear about something. That is not the way we do things.

Takt Systems Create Capacity and Buffers So You Can Pause

In Takt systems we finish on time for one purpose and one purpose alone. Jason wants to tell you what that is right now. It’s because Takt systems create capacity and they create buffers. And those buffers allow us to pause the system and pull the andon or the undon or whatever you want, however you want to pronounce it, and stop the system and absorb the variation. CPM systems do not allow that because they create a critical path, a string of activities where if any one of them are delayed it delays the whole system. Last Planner can create buffers in the system. Scrum creates capacity and buffers in the system. And Takt really creates buffers, meaning days that can absorb variation in the system.

When Jason does Takt trainings and he’s like “We need to stick to a Takt time,” people are like “Oh, so you’ve always finished? You’ve never had a variation?” He’s like “No, heck no, my systems or my projects are just as prone to variation as yours are. It’s just that my system with Takt is that I have created buffers within that system so that I can absorb that variation.” You cannot ever have a schedule. Jason wants owners, he wants superintendents, he wants company owners, he wants everybody, foremen, to hear him on this: the most idiotic thing that we could do in construction, the most idiotic stupid thing that we could do is to create schedules without buffers, to create schedules that can’t absorb variation.

Every single schedule should have buffers in the system to absorb variation. This is one of the things Jason’s been thinking about lately about Takt and the message behind Takt: it’s the only system that allows you to pause when you find a problem.

The Two Pillars: Just-In-Time and Automation With a Human Touch

Let Jason talk about that really quickly. He’s been reading The Toyota Production System: Beyond Large Scale Production by Taiichi Ohno. He talks about the two pillars of the Toyota production system. One of them is just-in-time that everything has flow and pull and the other one is automation. When you think about automation with a human touch, what that means is that you have a system, you have a systematic flow, but when there are defects, automatically you can stop the line. Humans can stop the line. The human touch can stop the line. This system will find the defects.

When it happens in a production line just like in Toyota or BMW or wherever, you can stop the line. You can pull the andon, you can pull a cord, push a button whatever and stop the entire line together. But what happens in construction is if we have a delay in one area, typically we just let that area get out of sequence and we keep pushing everybody else and then everybody gets out of rhythm. When you get out of rhythm you’ve entered a push situation. What we need to do is understand that the key to their success was that the entire system stopped.

First of all, they had flow. When they didn’t have flow they had pull. Pull meaning that one area only produced whatever items that they could produce when another system was ready for it or had need for it. It was a pull system. It wasn’t a push system. In a Takt system, if you keep that Takt time going regardless of whether or not one of your areas or one of your trades or whether one of your machines is keeping up with that pace or not, and if you keep pushing everybody according to that Takt time, then you are going to have push, excess inventory, all of the eight wastes, overburden, and unevenness. That’s going to throw your system out of production, out of line, out of efficiency and you won’t have flow efficiency.

Pause the Entire System and Eat Into a Buffer

What Jason’s saying is in summary, the best thing that you can do is have a schedule where if there’s a major problem, and not something small that they can recover from but a major problem, you can stop the entire Takt system and eat into one of those buffers and have everybody stay at the same pace, the same distance apart, and allow everybody on the project site to pause.

Most of the time people are going to say “Jason, you’re crazy. This is the dumbest idea I’ve ever had.” But when you have major impacts, that’s what you’re going to have to do. If you have a big problem with concrete, you’re going to have to pause the entire concrete system. If you have a major problem with interiors, you’re going to need to pause the entire interiors production system. If you have the same thing with anything, but if you let one area or one trade get disconnected then you’re going to overproduce before that scope or that trade or that area.

You’re going to create variation and workers waiting on work after that area or that scope or that trade and it’s going to create ripples of variation throughout the system. If you’re in a factory just like they observed in this factory, if you attempt to keep everybody on the Takt time even though there’s an interruption, you don’t pause the system, then you’ll have 10 machines overproducing, one trying to catch up, and all of the machines after it waiting with workers waiting on work.

But you could pause everybody and here’s the kicker: allow everybody in the system, everybody throughout that project, everybody in that manufacturing plant, everybody to basically prepare for their quality work the next time.

This is the key to Takt planning. When you pause the system, everybody doesn’t just sit around twirling their thumbs. They do these things:

• Make sure that prior activities are completed
• Make sure construction and design information is ready
• Make sure materials and components are prepared
• Make sure that workers are trained and ready to go
• Make sure that equipment is maintained and ready to go
• Make sure that the workspace is safe, ready, and clean
• Make sure that any other approvals and permissions are given
• Make sure that materials are queued up and stacked and ready to go
• Make sure that they do training with their employees
• Clean their stations

That is the genius of a Takt system: within our cycle times if we get done early we prepare the next task instead of moving it forward. If there’s an interruption in the system and we have to enter a buffer, we don’t keep pushing everybody and moving things forward. We pause and we prepare the next activity so it can hit right on the rhythm.

Flow, Pull, and When to Pause: The Rhythm of Takt

A Takt system just one more time has a rhythm and it has flow and it has pull. And when there’s major variation we pause the system. We pause the schedule and we allow for that interruption to be absorbed into a buffer and we keep everybody the same distance apart going the same speed, not overproducing. We allow everybody to get back onto rhythm.

We spend our time in that pause preparing for work again, doing those key things which are called the seven conditions for a sound activity: prior activities finishing as you go, quality at the source, any design information and preparations, materials and components stacked ready prepared for the work 100% ready to go, workers trained oriented extra training done, equipment maintained and ready to go, the workspace is clean safe and organized laid out, and any approvals and permissions are given. And that we are finishing as we go with limited work in process, quality at the source. We’re making sure 100% that we’re doing it and the right batch size is according to the right Takt time.

Wacky Takt is where you have a rhythm and even if there’s an interruption you keep pushing everybody through it, which causes overproduction, which causes waste, which causes unevenness, which causes overburden. It will interrupt and create variation in the system. But normal Takt planning is where you create an optimized schedule with buffers. And those buffers allow you to pause the system or stop the entire project of work or the entire phase of work and say “We all are going to pause for a minute, get this problem fixed. We’re going to eat into a buffer day. We’re all going to make sure that we’re staying on that same rhythm and we’re going to make sure that we have the capacity to absorb this variation together.” So that we don’t create a scenario of push.

The Electrician Example: Pause or Push?

Let Jason just give you one example. If you’re working in a phase and you have a two day delay in interiors and you want to keep everybody on Takt time and you have a three day Takt time and every three days that drum beats but you get one, let’s say light fixtures are missing and you have a real big problem. Do you then create a pause and eat into a three day buffer with one of your Takt times to let the electrician catch up? Give everybody else an additional three days for their deadlines. Allow them to spend their time preparing and get everybody back on sequence according to the beat.

Or will you just let that one area with that one trade with the electrician with their light fixtures basically slow down, keep everybody going at full speed with their deadlines and cause a ripple throughout the system which is hard to recover? When you’re in a manufacturing plant and you have a Takt time and you have one area that has slowed down for some reason, are you going to keep all the machines overproducing even though the whole system needs to pause? Flow is a superior system to pull. We first flow, then pull, and we never push. But if you are flowing with a Takt system and you have an interruption, if you don’t pause you will be pushing.

Remember: flow where you can, pull when you can’t, and stop pushing. You can get into a Wacky Takt kind of situation if you use Takt systems where you don’t pause and eat into your buffers when there’s a problem. At a minimum, Jason needs you to please consider this concept because it’s pretty powerful. Where are you on your projects or your manufacturing floor or in your company using a Takt system where you’re still pushing and where you haven’t created buffers? Where you don’t have buffers in the system and you’re actually using the Takt system like a push system and not a flow system?

Are you using it like a push system instead of a pull system? Are you stopping to fix problems as you go and stopping the entire system together so that all of the trades can stay the same distance apart and go the same speed?

Jason will leave you with this. Hopefully he’s explained it well enough. When people say “Jason, why have you always finished projects on time with Takt?” The answer is because he always has buffers and he always stops the system. And he always fixes things as they go and he always keeps the trades the same distance apart going the same speed. Because he has buffers and CPM does not. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: What is Goodhart’s Law and why does it matter for construction KPIs?

Goodhart’s Law says “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” KPIs become useless when the KPIs also become targets. If you have a production goal, a key performance indicator, and you make a goal out of that KPI, it stops being an indicator once it becomes a target because once the target is reached human beings will typically stop. It becomes a thermostat. If you set a thermostat to 76 degrees and temperature gets higher it will regulate back. If you have a KPI and go past that KPI to wild success, it will thermostat back to the target. Plan for variation and keep going towards perfection.

Q: What is Wacky Takt?

Wacky Takt is where you have a rhythm and even if there’s an interruption you keep pushing everybody through it, which causes overproduction, waste, unevenness, and overburden. It will interrupt and create variation in the system. It’s using Takt systems to push instead of pause. You attempt to keep everybody on the Takt time even though there’s an interruption. You don’t pause the system. Then you’ll have machines overproducing, one trying to catch up, and all the machines after it waiting with workers waiting on work.

Q: What’s the genius of a Takt system when you pause?

When you pause the system, everybody doesn’t just sit around twirling their thumbs. They make sure prior activities are completed, construction and design information is ready, materials and components are prepared, workers are trained and ready to go, equipment is maintained and ready to go, workspace is safe ready and clean, any other approvals and permissions are given, materials are queued up and stacked and ready to go, they do training with their employees, they clean their stations. Within cycle times if you get done early you prepare the next task instead of moving it forward.

Q: Why are buffers the most important part of Takt planning?

The most idiotic thing we could do in construction is to create schedules without buffers, to create schedules that can’t absorb variation. Every single schedule should have buffers in the system to absorb variation. Takt systems create capacity and buffers. Those buffers allow us to pause the system and pull the andon and stop the system and absorb the variation. CPM systems do not allow that because they create a critical path where if any one activity is delayed it delays the whole system. Takt creates buffers meaning days that can absorb variation in the system.

Q: How do you stop the entire system when there’s a major problem?

If there’s a major problem, not something small they can recover from but a major problem, you can stop the entire Takt system and eat into one of those buffers and have everybody stay at the same pace, the same distance apart, and allow everybody on the project site to pause. Big problem with concrete? Pause the entire concrete system. Major problem with interiors? Pause the entire interiors production system. If you let one area or trade get disconnected then you overproduce before that scope and create variation and workers waiting on work after that area. Pause everybody, allow everybody to prepare for quality work the next time.

On we go.