The Religion of Reuse | |||||||||||||||||||
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I've been reading Michael George's book on Fast Innovation. Chapter 6 reminded me about something I do all of the time: the religion of reuse. While Lean Six Sigma can speed up and mistake proof your existing processes, the religion of reuse can accelerate everything about your speed to market and response to customers. What is Reuse? Our software development team was tasked with delivering a new information system on an incredibly short time table. We looked at the functionality and the time available and we all agreed that we couldn't do it unless we created reusable modules for almost everything. In a six month window we built 40,000 lines of code that were the equivalent of 250,000 lines of custom code. We made our deadline and the code was much more reliable because it was used in so many places. Reuse gave us speed and quality. George quotes one of my heros in software development, Fred Brooks, who said: "The most radical solution for constructing software is not to construct it at all. The reuse of software n times multiplies the productivity of developers by n." While this thought is over 30 years old, it's still true, but most software developers feel the need to redevelop rather than reuse existing code which is why so many software projects are late and short on functionality. Reuse at Toyota The Law of Lead Time If you can double the completion rate, you can cut lead times by 50%. Reuse can help you do this by reducing the number of custom parts required to produce a final product. The 80-80-80 Rule If an innovation consists of 80% reuse, then lead time can be cut by 80% at 80% average utilization [of existing resources]. The Advantages of Reuse
QI Macros Software Reuse Writing Reuse It's very expensive to sell once, do once. It's manual labor. But if you can do once and sell many times, then you start to get tremendous benefits from reuse. Invest in Reuse Ask yourself:
You'll be surprised by the reusable assets you can develop and the speed and quality with which you can serve your market. Get the religion of reuse. It will help you grow your business, boost
your bottom line and delight customers. And isn't that what it's all about?
© 2007 Jay Arthur, the KnowWare® Man, works with managers who want to plug the leaks in their cash flow. Hire Jay Arthur to train your staff in his one-day Lean Six Sigma Workshop! Contact Jay at (888) 468-1537, lifestar@rmi.net. Rights to reprint this article in company periodicals is freely given with the inclusion of the following tag line: "© 2007 Jay Arthur, the KnowWare® Man, (888) 468-1537, lifestar@rmi.net."
To subscribe to this Ezine, go to http://www.qimacros.com/freestuff.html © 2007 KnowWare International Inc. (888) 468-1537 |
It contains over 70 fill in the blank templates such as the Ishikawa diagram, QFD, DOE, FMEA, PPAP, and Gage R&R for MSA. Performs ANOVA, t-test, F-test, and regression analysis.
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