cbs4boston.com – Pats Install Synthetic Turf At Gillette Stadium

Was watching the Bears/Patriots game yesterday and the announcers mentioned that a new artificial turf surface was installed for the Patriots, replacing the old natural grass field that got real muddy and lousy with rain and overuse.

The job was done in “8 days” as opposed to the normal time of 6 to 8 weeks, per Joe Buck.

Troy Aikman made a comment that implied basically “well if it was done that much faster than normal, there’s probably something that wasn’t done properly.”

That’s possible. But, it’s also likely that WASTE was eliminated from the total installation time. They had a motivated customer (the Patriots and the NFL) with a lot of money involved, so they probably had crews working 24×7.

The lean way to install a field (if, and only IF, a customer required it that quickly) would be to line up all of the value added steps without delays. A normal 6 to 8 week installation is probably made of mostly waiting time, delays, and rework. Maybe the Patriots did it right.

If the percentage of non value added time in a manufacturing process is very typically 98%+ (pre-lean, of course), why would we expect that to be any different for installation of a field?

About LeanBlog.org: Mark Graban is a consultant, author, and speaker in the “lean healthcare” methodology, focused on improving quality and patient safety, improving access, reducing costs, and fully engaging healthcare professionals. He is also the Chief Improvement Officer for KaiNexus.