Understanding the Health Check - Phase 8: Buffer Management

Phase 8 is characterised by managing the jobs that are becoming ‘at risk,’ and reliably dealing with increasing job risk in a timely manner, before damage occurs

A business that has completed this phase would check off the following as true...

You’ll notice that instead of panic and chaos, job risk is being dealt with equitably and timely. The system's buffers allow you to track, predict, and intervene to address trending risks early.

  • The buffer logs mean management is able to analyse and resolve the root causes of risk to prevent reoccurrence.
  • The buffered visual boards allow management to alter job assignments to minimise disruption caused by leave.
  • Trending resource overloads are visible, allowing recruiting, and resourcing to minimise ripple effects through operations.

The clarity around the intervention point is eliminating confusion as to responsibilities, allowing staff to act more autonomously, more consistently, and more appropriately to abnormal variations in the flow.

  • Your people are proactively responding to risk predictors, eliminating delivery performance failures. As a result, business performance reliability is improving, as is cash flow.
  • Almost all jobs now finish within your systems buffered lead time.