The Concept of "Dead Time" in Processes

When I was at University I studied the classic Human Resources stuff - Maslow's hierarchy of needs, etc. One of the classic studies (of which I have forgotten the name) always sticks in my mind.

The experiment measured how workers in a factory worked most productively. It essentially discovered that those who worked rapidly could only keep up the rapid work for a certain amount of time before they "burned out" whilst those that were most productive worked at a steady pace throughout.

What this shows is that the "fast" workers were probably operating near to 100% productivity, while the others were operating at, say 70%. When the fast workers burnt out they (for example) dropped to 30% productivity - so overall their productivity was less over the piece.

Where I am going with this is what I call the concept of "dead time". In any process where human beings are involved you will rarely or never have 100% productivity - it's just not our nature. "Dead time" is the gap between 100% productivity and actual productivity.

So why is this important? Well it needs to be considered when looking at processes. This is because it is a waste of effort, time, money, etc. to improve process steps that fall into "dead time". For example is it worth installing new lifts in a building that are super fast to enable employees to get to their desks quicker? I'd say probably not as this period of time may fall into "dead time". Is it worth spending money on a super fast coffee machine in the kitchen? Probably not because people will still stand around and talk to whoever is in the kitchen at the time.

These are simplistic examples, but it is always important to realise that there will always be percentage of "dead time" in every process - it isn't always worth optimising every stage of the process - making the judgement call of what fits into "dead time" is the tricky part.

- TPN