DVD Review
Life's a Batch
 Mike Micklewright, aka The Whys Guy, is excited about quality. In fact, watching just the hour-plus of his DVD, Batchin'! Why Something So Wrong Can Seem So Right, with his gesticulations and breathless, hyper-excited delivery, will leave you wondering if he started his day with four espressos and a Red Bull chaser.
Which isn't to say that Batchin'! isn't a source of valuable, well-organized, and even entertaining information. It is. It's just that in his rush to turn what could be a somewhat dry topic into something packed with excitement and worthy of wholeheartedly energetic motivation, Micklewright goes so far in the opposite direction that it's possible to become distracted by his
boundless, pop-eyed exuberance and lose sight of the
value of the information he's offering.
Micklewright's approach to teaching the impracticality of batch processing and the advantages of lean resource management is to take us on a tour of his house to show us where waste is most likely to occur, and how to avoid or minimize it at the source.
Kitchen hints:
• Don't buy "cheap" bulk packages of foods that will spoil before you eat them.
• If you only drink one cup of coffee in the morning, don't brew a 10-cup pot.
• Don't scrub your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.
So far, so good. These are lessons that are easily transposed to good practices in the workplace. The advice to sleep in short doses to increase productive waking time, maybe not so much.
Where he really hits his stride is in breaking down the laundry process, his analysis of which includes a 5S evaluation of the closet to get rid of unnecessary inventory, and a kaizen event for documenting and measuring the step-by-step processes involved in washing clothes. Micklewright's wife, who provides a deadpan, calming counterbalance to Micklewright's hyperactivity, exemplifies the wise manager taking advantage of the training and intelligence of shop-floor workers to improve managed processes.
All in all, Micklewright provides an entertaining introduction to the pitfalls of batch processing and the advantages of lean-management, and does it in such a way that you get a chuckle or two out of the learning experience. More important, you can also translate the lessons from the home to the workplace.
Copyright © 2006 QCI International. All rights reserved.
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