Question

1. How does the analogy of a “bucket brigade” demonstrate that achieving single piece flow is extremely difficult?

Answer 1

1) "Bucket Brigade" refers to line of people passing buckets from one person to another. The problem in Bucket Brigade scenario is that if there is a single weak link, it will slow down the entire process as all the people are co-dependent on each other. The output from one person acts as an input for the other person. In a similar manner, the single piece flow aligns activities one after the other which works in tandem. If any of the process or activity is down due to failure, it stops the entire flow leading to reduces uptime and output. Thus, it is very difficult to manage single piece flow.