25Seven

Early Adopters in Local Food, or Any Industry

A few weeks ago Seven Cycles was fortunate to be invited to participate in, and host, an exploratory discussion called a “Local Food Creative Session”.  I think we were invited because we had the space to host… but they got stuck with me in the bargain.  The event was put together and moderated by Wayne Maceyka for one of his classes at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute.

It was a really interesting session and we covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time.  I have a number of thoughts about which I would like to post—at least on the ideas that relate to the bike industry, but Wayne is working on a paper for BGI and I don’t want to get in the way of his work.  Once he completes his work, I’ll post some additional ideas.

One of the primary questions we explored in the session was, “How can we get 10% of food produced and consumed within 100-mile circumference?”

Product-Process Matrix

I was reading a final draft of a case on which three Harvard MBA students have been working.  One of the subjects of the case is Seven Cycles’ Operations Strategy.  It’s been an interesting project and the group has done a great job; I’m sure they can’t wait for it to be over.  Near the end of the written case, the writers talk about how the Hayes Wheelwright Framework—HWF—for product-process flow didn’t occur at Seven.  Essentially, Seven had broken out of the HWF in an unusual way.

Reading the term “Hayes Wheelwright” reminded me of one of the first manufacturing books I read; a book Hayes, Wheelwright, and Clark wrote called Dynamic Manufacturing.  Still considered an important book, it’s been more than 15-years since I read it, but I immediately remembered that framework and how, even 15-years ago, I thought we could have the best of both worlds:  high volume manufacturing without commoditization.

Lean Rememberance

I received a call today from the owner of a high end bike manufacturer.  He called to ask about Seven’s approach to lean manufacturing and how we have applied it successfully.  He is looking for ways to improve his business and feels that Seven has accomplished some of what he is striving to do.

This might not sound like an unusual call—business people discussing strategies.  However, anyone in the bike supplier world will recognize this situation to be pretty unusual.  The high end bike industry is very competitive; there are a growing number of suppliers looking for larger slices of a shirking pie.

I am flattered that he called to ask for advice.  Before today, I never stopped to think about the fact that I and a few others at Seven were present during the beginnings of the coining of the term ‘lean manufacturing’.  Jim Womack—author of the 1990 book, The Machine That Changed the World—coined the term in the mid 1990s.  'Lean' is essentially an Americanized expression for the Toyota Production System (TPS) that began in the 1940s.

Moneyball

As the Red Sox continue to do what they seem to do each year, I’ve been thinking about the book Moneyball:  The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.  I am not a big baseball fan; as sports go, cycling is about it for me.  Regardless, I read Moneyball when it was first published; my brother read it, he told me about some of the interesting ideas, and it sounded like it might be worthwhile to me, too.  It was; I love statistics, underdogs, and counterintuitive logic—and Moneyball has all that.

To me, Moneyball is essentially about ruthlessly employing statistics—in baseball the method is called sabermetrics—to get the best possible results.  I am oversimplifying but the manager of the Oakland A’s—Billy Beane—has seen very impressive and unlikely results, particularly in the early part of this decade, before most other baseball teams began applying these types of statistics.  Anyway, here are the most interesting quotes in the book, as relate to Seven Cycles.  Enjoy.