#Ford: batch out for Will??? that’s nonsense

[ifwebefriends]

HELLO?!!?!?!?!!!

[Image ID. A page from Gravity Falls Journal 3. It’s a section about “soothsquitos.” The author, Ford Pines, writes “Their bites spell out dire messages for your future, except they’re frequently misspelled. I was told to ‘BATCH OUT FOR WILL,’ which, as far as I can tell, is total nonsense!” Next to the text is a photo of a soothsquito, which looks like a regular mosquito but with three eyes. End ID.]

[Image ID. An MS Paint meme of someone sitting in a chair slightly leaning forward and looking distressed and distraught. End ID.]

[inthezoyne]

Journal three entries with captions part three:

Captions begin:

Scampfire

These spider like beasts pose as campfires, then spring to life when you get close. They like to eat campers, marshmallows and beans, but will feed on pretty much anything combustible.

Can be doused with water, but will hiss.

Kill Billy

Feral, fanged, glowing-eyed hill men that will suck your blood and steal your overalls! These may be the beings responsible for the cursed outhouses.

Communicates through grunts and ham-boning. When you hear bluegrass music, run for the nearest convenience store. They can’t get in. (No shirt, no shoes, no service)

Soothsquitos

Their bites spell out dire messages for your future, except they’re frequently misspelled! I was told to “BATCH OUT FOR WILL,” which, as far as I can tell, is utter nonsense!

“Steve”

Never actually seen its face. Covered in moss and mushrooms, hides in the forest, big enough to pick up my car and eat it. (Which it did! Years ago!) My theory is that this is some species of tree-giant.

Older than the town itself! It’s legs look remarkably like trees, and considering how many lumberjacks are nearby, that explains why it’s such a recluse.

I tried to communicate with it by speaking in low tones through a megaphone, but it threw a deer at me, and so I decided to leave it alone. I call it Steve because it acts like a Steve.

The invisible wizard

Don’t believe your eyes? Good. You don’t have to! This bizarre sorcerer is completely impossible to see with the naked eye. However with night vision goggles, I was able to get a brief glance of him trying on my suits in my closet. (He later turned my goggles into a bat)

POINTY HAT!

With a hat like that, he must be a wizard. Look at that ridiculous thing!

Piercing blue eyes, chiseled cheekbones could be a model if he wasn’t invisible.

BELT OF POTIONS

These must be what he drinks to stay invisible, and possibly to teleport through time. I don’t know where he’s from, but judging by the smell, I’m going to say it was a time when they hadn’t yet invited showers.

How to get rid of him? I may need to find another wizard to perform a “WIZZORCISM.” (More on those in journal 2).

The Abominable Bro-Man

What I would have given to find an actual yeti or Bigfoot! Instead, the only Cryptid I’ve discovered in local peaks is this obnoxious soda-swilling ape-beast who can only say:

“bro,” “righteous,” and “chill sesh.”

I assume he ate a hiker and stole his frayed baseball cap and cargo shorts, and has since started emulating him.

Barf Fairies

Unfortunately, exactly what they sound like. Had to wear a plastic poncho to study these in the wild. It’s possible their vomiting is a form of communication, but I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. Whatever it is they’re eating, I need to watch out for it.

Leprecorn

A disappointment to unicorn enthusiasts and leprechaun hunters alike, these giggling freaks of nature are found near rainbows and boxes of sugary cereal with colorful marshmallow shapes.

I was searching a nearby field for four-leaf clovers to use in a luck experiment when I encountered this… specimen. He said,

“TOP O’ THE MORNING TO YA!” and then proceeded to chew on my sideburns.

I picked him up by the horn and threw him as far as I could, but he trotted right back!

Their horns are musical and play a constant loop of “Danny Boy.” It is VERY IRRITATING. Gold coins fell out of his beard. I pocketed a few, but later discovered they were plastic. Everything about this creature is FRUSTRATING!

I shudder to think how such a horrific being came into this world. (Although for the record I will state that actual Unicorns are just as annoying.)

Stomach-Faced Duck

Some creatures in Gravity Falls inspire awe. Others inspire “AHHHHH!!!” I was immediately disturbed when I witnessed a flock of these malformed mallards swimming together in the center of the lake.

I purchased a duck whistle at the bait shop to see if one would return my call. Indeed he did. But when his mouth opened, I could see his intestines and other vital organs! it was horrifying! Although anatomically quite fascinating.

I quickly lost my appetite and turned over my crackers and sandwich to the birds, who were happy to finish them off. One might make a good pet. That is, if you could over the whole visible-intestines thing.

Question Quail

owls say “WHO.” These birds say “WHERE?,” “WHY?,” and “WHEN?” known by their black question markings. Perhaps cousins of the Apostro-Finch and Exclamation Parakeet

Cowl

Part cow, part owl, Lays milk filled eggs. Calls “M-HOO.” Even more of a paradox than its cousin the “Parrot-Ox”

Hawktopus

Too stupid to study.

Woodpecker-pecker

A miniature woodpecker that gets its meals by pecking bugs out of the back feathers of regular sized woodpeckers. May have a Woodpecker-pecker-pecker on its back. (Need microscope to investigate)

The Bottomless Pit

I want to “get to the bottom” of this mystery. But it seems impossible! This “Mobius Pit” seems to somehow impossibly loop back in on itself. Many that things are tossed in are eventually tossed right back out. But SOME things never return…

It is nearly impossible to predict what will return and what won’t. There are no discernible pattens in terms of time of day or weather conditions. Of course socks never come back. Junk mail almost always does. Ironically, nothing seems to get lost on Friday The 13th.

The speed at which things return also varies, but experimentation has taught me that if something does not return within twenty-four hours, it never comes back.

DO NOT THROW SOMETHING IN IF YOU EVER WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN!

One day I may have the courage to leap in out of curiosity. Although I might find myself on a plane of existence that I am not ready to handle

(or just waste twenty-one minutes telling myself stories to myself to keep entertained).

End of captions.

Comments:

I love how Stanford is just like, yeah this is too stupid to study, ANYWAYS THIS WOODPECKER WITH A TINY WOODPECKER ON ITS BACK THOUGH!!? Low wisdom high Intelligence.

end of comments.

[gfdatingsim]

So…

@robinthegreenbird submitted:

I’ve played both routes ((haven’t perfected any yet lol)) and I just wanted to say, That this is easily one of my favorite games. Also I have a question what parts did you make? Once again I love this game so much!

rosie: thank you so much!! making the game was a lot of fun so i’m glad you’ve enjoyed it :)  my parts of the game were ford’s last two dates – mabel’s dinner date of dreams and sunset confessions. writing those two was super fun!! 

i knew i wanted a special mabel-ified date (as she is my favorite character) so i incorporated her into the dinner date i planned for the player and ford– with her extra bits of pizazz on top, of course. when i wrote the meteor shower part at the end, i was in a rough patch and wanted some love and that good good validation, so i let ford give it to me, lmao. as the second-last date of ford’s route, i wanted it to be special and sweet, with ford’s affection toward the player really evident and confirmed, in a way, so it wasn’t just longing glances and blushing for the entire route lmao. it was originally the mabel-match date, but sovo swapped the schedules around and i think it works even better!

the pool date was more of a challenge. the last date of the route, the team and i agreed it had to be more of a serious one– one for ford to feel comfortable opening up to the player about everything that’s happened to him, not just what he told them on the dinner date, yanno? all about weirdmageddon and that business. writing angst isn’t really my forte – so thank you phoe for helping me write that nonsense– but we needed it to be important and kinda heavy on ford’s end, with the end of the game almost relying on how the player reacted to his story. all the seriousness got to me though so the option to jump in the pool was my executive decision eyyy 

i also wrote the two between-y bits with mabel and dipper – pancakes and interrogations and the fine summer’s wedding! i wrote those just before the game came out, but since i was still in the middle of my college semester, it took me a bit longer… which is why poor sovo had to do a large chunk of the editing themselves, which i do apologize for;; but even with all the mad stress and load on their shoulders, they did a phenomenal job with everything they had to take on, and this project wouldn’t be the same– well, it wouldn’t even exist– without them!

i hope this answered your question, if not a bit wordy. i am a writer after all. thank you for playing! <3 

sovo: I worked on all the programming, a bunch of background art, the GUI, Stan’s driving sprites, playtesting, writing, editing, managing, you name it. As you can imagine, at times this project really stressed me out! 

The worst of it was probably the editing/rearranging/rewriting, which was a way bigger task than I anticipated. When we were organizing in Discord at the beginning of the project, we had so many writers that we split the whole game’s story up into nine pieces, one for each writer, and each with the same deadlines. At that point it was just the Ford and Stan events themselves– no in-between events with the kids, no transitions, no introduction or end. Writers handed in first drafts, then second drafts, and then those drafts went straight into editing. 

The idea was that Isa, Rosie, and I could do all the editing to bring about a more unified voice, since we essentially had nine voices in there, but in hindsight it was… not the best plan I could’ve gone with. Not asking the writers to polish their dates further meant that way more had to be done in the editing stage– plus we still had to write a remaining third of the game from scratch (transitions/intro/ending). When I think back to it I can still feel my dread from those times lol, because there was so much work to do and as the school year loomed, there were three– and then two– and then one– people available to do it. Isa (below) is right, the discord went dead for a long time after the writers handed in the last of their drafts about a month into the project. 

Also, almost everyone in the group was into Dream Daddy, so many of our writers followed DD’s suit and wrote mini-games into their dates (mini-games that I still don’t know how to implement). So I had to cut all those out and patch it over with writing. Then in some drafts there was still placeholder text left, like ���[insert wall of text here],” which I had to figure out or just patch over with new writing. Then sometimes there was still wonky dialogue, or odd behavior, and I’d try and nudge Ford or whoever into character again. Then the introduction and ending were still partially done or just plain missing, so I grafted Rosie’s intro draft onto another intro draft and led it into Ford’s cryptid hunt event, and drafted an ending for the sim, and then Isa really fleshed it out after.

And while this wasn’t strictly necessary, I ended up rearranging Ford’s route just a tad. Ford’s route originally went cryptid -> ddamd -> dinner date -> pool -> baking, so the dinner date was originally Mabel’s matchmaking scheme– which Rosie pulled off super well! In fact, she pulled it off so well that something felt off to me about Ford’s route progression, because while each date stood fine alone, it’s like things peaked a little too soon. After a lot of puzzling over what exactly felt off, I finally switched it up to go baking -> dinner date -> pool instead, rewriting the context of the baking date so that it would fit in.

Honestly, I don’t think the three of us really know the extent of the work we did during editing, even now? Like, to add to the above, Rosie also altered/added stuff & wrote much-needed transitions across the game including the two in-between events with the kids, which I think really tied the game together by giving it a bit of non-dating-centric story! And Isa did a bunch of editing/rewriting all across the game, especially on Stan’s route. While they worked I got to settle into my drawing/programming/playtesting role, which was a whole other batch of tedium, but everything turned out great!

isa: *cracks knuckles* alright sooooo. to start off I was really in the deep of it all really early on, starting from the brainstorming stage! Like Sovo said, the base we started from was the dates- the chat came up with possible date scenarios for both characters and we voted on which ones we’d want to see in the game! Coincidentally, all the final dates that made it in were mostly proposed by me! But all the others we tried to incorporate somehow even if they weren’t top 5; for instance, a drive in movie was proposed but didn’t make it so it turned into watching a movie at home after the main boxing part of the date. I also arranged the date order before we started writing based on premise, and what was most believable for the progression + time to get to know Stan and have things get more intimate and hopefully natural feeling! The concept and writing for Stan’s final date was all mine! Although I had originally had it stop after the kiss in the diner to leave it open-ended with “you wanna get out of here?” so the player could decide whether they…. took a ride on the Stan O’ War or not lmao, but then Sovo encouraged me to make it more steamy ending which I’m forever grateful for mwuahah. Everything else about the date was a piece of cake honestly, I found it easy to write since I knew where I wanted Stan + player to be in terms of their relationship/flirt level. The hardest part was…. finding a way to cut the makeout short that would be in character! Which is why I used poor, poor Robbie as my plot convenience. Sorry m'dude.

I edited and fluffed the intro form what Sovo had and edited…. the whole game actually I think. In terms of fixing typos, grammar, adding little lines here and there, etc. both in Stan and Ford’s routes. A huge role was also communicating from Sovo to the other writers on what still needed to be done, organization, due dates, etc. So I was kind of like a manager/coordinator too. I also wrote transitions from one date to the next, like the nap reader takes in order to fit Stan’s boxing date cg in the game and wrote them cuddling Waddles as well as the first half or so of the final version intro to Stan’s final date (Sovo then took up the rest!). I wrote a couple general intros too but they didn’t make it in since Rosie did such a good job lol.After talking with Sovo and deciding it’d be okay to change Ford’s date order to feel like a more natural progression, I made changes accordingly to the intros and things that were now out of order within his dates, mostly the baking date since that was the main one affected along with the swimming date. I had fun writing for Ford on that one, I really like the small things with him, like having the idea that he can crack two eggs in one hand super easy.

The biggest thing for me was making sure everything was cohesive and in-character while editing the rest of Stan’s route. Each date was wonderful but with so many writers there were quite a few inconsistencies from one date to another, which is understandable since everyone just started writing on their own and didn’t know what others wrote until after. (And also I made some executive decisions on what I thought was and wasn’t out of character or what I thought didn’t fit with what we’ve seen in the source material or what would happen after the finale.) There were a lot of things that had to be removed as a result, which led to big gaps I had to fill and choices/possibilities I had to streamline. For instance, I completely rearranged and had to rewrite a lot of the movie part and the end of the date. Sometimes in the dates there were a lot of choices but none of them really had much of an impact on your approval rating in the game, which became more important later on, so I had to make bad choices worse and good choices better! So like for the films, the date ends differently depending on which film you pick, but if you’re doing well enough already and you pick an option that isn’t the best, you get an okay ending and aren’t completely out of luck lol (picking a horror film is neither the worst nor the best but if you have a high score already it’s more of an inconvenience than anything). Also, consistency was key. I had a unique challenge with Stan’s accent and how to write it in, so I’d find myself reading over his dialogue many times and keeping what felt natural and not forced to it wouldn’t be understood in context with other words lol. And simple things like punctuation- all the writers wrote things differently, so like TV vs tv vs t.v. etc or Stan O'War vs Stan-O-War, etc. That part’s more tedious than anything. OH, and I grabbed the voice clips from Gravity Falls as well as the sound effects for that version. It felt weird without an actual car horn to interrupt; I also found alternative tracks for the disco date until phoe pulled through! 

And then finally, I rewrote the general farewell at the end from the base that we there already, and embellished and added a bit more floof to Stan’s possible endings. For his bad ending I think if you got a low enough score that your dates got cut short, he’d be pretty cold because wow you just made him fix your car and you were kinda rude to him bye stranger. And if you got far enough that he set up the disco date for you but your score was low overall, he’d be kinda heartbroken but definitely wouldn’t let it show, he’s just be gruff and defensive. And if you did well, he’ll let his fondness show a bit more in his own way. You’re still only someone he just met, and he’s spent so long hiding that he’s still getting used to being himself so he won’t bear his entire heart just yet, but there’s definitely promise and he’s excited. I headcanon that he sends you weird trinkets in the mail and texts/video calls you pretty regularly until the Stan O'War II docks somewhere close and you two can visit and catch up.

This project was a lot of work….. it was pretty dead in some spaces, mostly after the writers finished their dates and it got passed on for the monstrous editing job lol. Some times I couldn’t stop editing, others I was slammed for weeks with classes and personal life, and Sovo was so kind and understanding! I really learned a lot about writing and am sad it’s over, but also. Not lol. I’m so amazed with how it turned out and I can’t believe the reception it’s gotten!!! ;u;

[khashanakalashtar]

Check Please characters as shit my friends have said

Bitty: "What are you going to do with three batches of snickerdoodles, may I ask?" "TAKE OVER THE WORLD." "Obviously."

Jack: As a person who has written super long essays in foreign languages, I'm sort of laughing at your pain.

Shitty: Glitter aliens have no concept of gender.

Lardo: "I want to hear all about it when you can update us puny mortals." "When did I become not a puny mortal?" "When you got a summer job at the SMITHSONIAN."

Ransom: Someone needs to tell your nervous system to calm its ganglia!

Holster: I think moving into college can best be summed up thusly: I've just pulled a pair of jeans out from under my bed. I don't know why they were there. I don't remember putting them there. I only know that they've been there for several days, and I haven't found it convenient till now to remove them.

Nursey: You know you've gone full hipster when it's second nature to take a record out of its inner and outer sleeve, wipe it, put it on the turntable and drop the needle but when confronted with a CD you've forgotten how to open the case

Chowder: Oh shit, oh shit, now who is it that's trying to seduce my girlfriend? Oh, it's me. That's okay then.

Dex: CUDDLING LOBSTERS SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD THING A+++++ 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND

Ford: There was a man voyeuristically learning acting.

Johnson: We now return to our regularly scheduled nonsense.

Kent: I’ve been kidnapped to an American apparel store. Send rescue.

Suzanne:...y'all stink at this 'good influences' thing, you know that?

[fordanoia]

Soothsquitos

Their bites spell out dire messages for your future, except they’re frequently misspelled. I was told to “BATCH OUT FOR WILL,” which, as far as I can tell, is total nonsense!

So, I wanted to make a small post because I actually like to think about Ford missing the whole soothsquito message in two different ways.

The first is that Ford DID obviously understand that it was suppose to be ‘watch out for bill.’ However, he immediately dismissed it as utterly preposterous because what, really? Bill? Watch out for Bill? Well, obviously it can’t be that so this message is just complete nonsense. 

Now, because some journal stuff is exaggerated a bit for comedy my second idea is basing off of that realistically Ford would realize what the message was and still think it was actually a dire message..... but he’d take the meaning of it completely wrong.

Instead of taking it as Bill being dangerous, he took it as ‘watch out for bill so nothing bad happens to him.’ 

The message can be taken one of two ways, and considering how Ford legitimately believed Bill to be his friend- I definitely like to think he’d see this and keep an eye on him and potential dangers for Bill’s safety.

[vitalmindandbody]

Owning a gondola will soon be a situation of the past | John Harris

As metropolitans clamp down on vehicle employment, engineering is putting a utopian image in reach, writes Guardian columnist John Harris

If ours is an age in which no end of institutions and assemblies are being disrupted, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that one of the most basic features of everyday life seems under serious threat. If you are fortunate enough to live in a house with a drive, look outside and you will probably see it: that four-wheeled metal container, which may well be furnished with every technological innovation imaginable, but now testifies distinct signeds of obsolescence.

To applied it any other way: after a century in which the car has sat at the core of industrial civilisation, the age of the automobile- of mass vehicle ownership, and the idea( in the western world at least) that life is not accomplish without your own situate of wheels- examines to be drawing to a close. Top Gear is a dead duck. No one writes pop psalms about Ferraris any more. The stereotypical boy racer emerges a futile throwback. And in our metropolitans, the use of cars is being overtaken by altogether greener, more liberating possibilities.

The sale of diesel and petrol autoes is to be prohibited in the UK from 2040. But only 10 weeks ago Oxford announced that it is set to be the first British metropolitan to ban all petrol and diesel automobiles and vans– from a handful of central streets by 2020, extending to the entire urban centre 1o years later. Paris will ban all non-electric cars by 2030, and is now in the habit of announcing car-free periods on which moves have to stay out of its historic centre. In the French city of Lyon, car numbers have fallen by 20% since 2005, and the authorities have their batches set on another lowering of the same quantity. London, meanwhile, has shredded the idea that rising fortune ever provokes rising automobile use, and checked a 25% fall in the share of pilgrimages made by vehicle since 1990.

Last week, highlighting the increasingly likely advent of driverless vehicles, General Engine announced that it will soon inaugurate testing autonomous gondolas in the challenging conditions of New York City, apparently the latest step in the company’s quick and handsomely funded move towards building a new fleet of self-driving taxis. Earlier this year, forecasters at Bank of America tentatively claimed that the US may have reached “peak car”, admitting that” transportation is costly and ineffective, clearing key sectors ripe for disruption “. Their focus was on ride-sharing business, car-pool apps and the collective utilization of bicycles: what they were predicting had the sense of a reality that now is plain to see.

Sinitta mourns having a boyfriend who attends more about his Ferrari, in her 1987 slam GTO

There are caveats to all this, of course. Although cities in the world’s rising economies are just as fond of car-sharing and motorcycle utilize as anywhere in the west, car ownership in India and China is rising vertiginously. And as one of the 25,000 occupants of a West Country town that is expanding fast and now prone to impasse, I can confirm that in swaths of home countries, the relevant recommendations that we will soon surrender our vehicles is very easy to appear preferably far-fetched. The recent farcical launch by Great Western Railway of its new intercity teaches( harassed by technological questions, and now taken out of service) highlights how our modes of public transport continues woeful. Even if it raises regular twinges of guilt, there is now little alternative to owning a car, and using it every day.

But deep social directions do time in a different direction. In 1994 48% of 17 – to 20 -year-olds and 75% of 21 – to 29 -year-olds had driving licences. According to the National Travel Survey, by 2016 these figures had dropped respectively to 31% and 66%. Some of this, of course, is down to the deep financial dangers experienced by millennials, and the stupid costs of automobile assurance. But in the framework of technological change, it looks like it might have just as much to do with the likely chassis of the future. If you buy most of your nonsense online, it was necessary to drive to a supermarket or shopping mall lessens to good-for-nothing; if you are in daily touch with distant acquaintances and family online, might a time-consuming visit to discover them was of the view that bit less urgent? Meanwhile, at the other result of the demographic range, an ageing population will shortly have evenly profound upshots- for high levels of gondola owned, and the needs of the alternatives.

Many immense social changes creep up on us, and the fact that legislators tend to avert their eyes from incipient changes often serves to keep them out of public dialogue. But this one is surely gigantic. I am from a generation for whom the promise of your own auto represented a kind of personal utopia. Go-faster stripes were signifiers for aspiration; Margaret Thatcher’s reputed contend that” a being who, beyond persons under the age of 26, encounters himself on a bus can count himself as a failing” chimed with the recently discovered exultation of conspicuous consumption. Now, even if some of this persists on, it does not seem nearly as culturally strong. The rising world-wide disaster focused on fatal high levels of airborne pollutants approves the motor industry’s grim environmental impacts; and concerns about the sub-prime lends that now define a huge swath of the car market suggest that the expected pleasure of driving are likely to be unsustainable in abundance of other ways.

Traffic in Oxford Street, central London, in 1965. Image: Powell/ Getty Images

The birth pangs of something better are unavoidably messy, as evidenced by the stink currently bordering Uber– an archetypal speciman of those modern disruptors who point to the future, while overshadowing their visions in a great cloud of arrogance. But whatever Uber’s miss( and it has to be said: in a city as diverse as London, the relevant recommendations of traditional black cabs, principally driven by lily-white British men, representing a comparatively progressive option seems flimsy, to say the least ), its inventions are hardly going to be put back in their container. In the US, the average payment per mile of the UberX service is employed at around $1.50; In New York City, gondola possession is currently working at around$ 3 a mile. As and when Uber and Lyft– and whatever ride-hailing services either connect or dislodge them- lead driverless in cities and suburbs across the planet, financing of the maths will become unanswerable.

At a season of all-pervading sadnes, oblige no mistake: this is good information. At the heart of it all are amazingly emancipatory prospects: mobility no longer dependent on a huge cash outlay and on the organised extortion of motor assurance; everybody, regardless of age or disability, able to access much the same move. With the requisite political will, diminishing numbers of cars will bring opportunities to radically redesign urban areas. The environmental helps will be self-evident. And as municipalities are increasingly car-free, townships will cry out for their own changes. Neglected railway branch lines may well come back to life; the hacking-down of bus services that came with austerity will be required to be changed. With any luck, the banal expression “public transport” will take on a new vitality.

Is this utopian? No more, surely, than the daydreams of the people whose imaginations of a automobile outside very house and busy roadways eventually came true, with no end of gruesome causes.” The remains of the old is necessary decently laid away; the path of the brand-new prepared ,” said Henry Ford. How sardonic that the same gumption now applies to the four-wheeled dreamings he caused, and their final travel to the scrapyard.

* John Harris is a Guardian columnist

Read more: www.theguardian.com

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[jameslisaacson]

Why Aren’t You Solving Ohno’s Problem?

The Lean Enterprise Institute’s Lean Transformation Framework encompasses five questions. The first question is: “What problem are we trying to solve?” For most people, it is a reasonable first question to ask. But there are two other important related questions: 1. Who should answer that first question? and 2. Is there a common answer? In LEIs Lean Transformation Framework, it seems that everyone should answer that first question and that there is no common answer for organizations. The question is open-ended and so too will be the answer depending on who answers it; anyone from CEO to shop floor associate.

For this reason, LEIs Lean Transformation Framework seems to me more likely to generate a lot of “busywork” than produce serious business results. Allow me to explain this iconoclastic point of view:

The context, Lean transformation, reflects changes in mindset and practices across an entire organization. Given the scope of change, the first question can only be answered by the executive team. After all, Lean, we are told, is a strategy, and so executives are clearly responsible for answering this first question for an organization. Given what concerns CEOs, the answer will surely be specific and connected to actual business needs. One such need that all businesses have, and which all CEOs care about, is cost reduction. So, the question “What problem are we trying to solve?” can yield a common answer both within a business or for any business: cost reduction. There are many methods to achieve cost reduction. However, executives should seek methods that strengthen competitiveness, not weaken it. Strengthening competitiveness means finding methods to reduce costs when production volumes are low. Simply increasing production quantities to reduce costs (i.e. economies of scale), which anyone can do, weakens competitiveness in buyers’ markets.

While the first question must cascade through the organization, so too must its answer in order to focus team and individual problem-solving efforts. If not, then people will be busy solving problems for which there is no actual business need. This is called “busy work,” which we have all experienced. If employees continue the same old pattern of doing “busy work” while under LEI’s Lean Transformation Framework, then people will work to solve problems that have no business need and produce no business result. And there will be no Lean transformation.

Most businesses operate in competitive (buyers’) markets. Daily competition and the existence of other threats to survival means a business cannot afford to solve problems disconnected from actual needs and which have no business impact. It wastes time and resources, and will put them further and further behind the competition as time goes by. It also wastes people’s (employees’) lives.

For Taiichi Ohno, the answer to the question “What problem are we trying to solve?” was not ambiguous or open-ended. It was specific and reflected actual needs as perceived by Toyota’s top leaders in their struggle to compete against Ford and General Motors’ products in Japan, their competitors’ cost-reduction efforts, customers’ never-ending desire to pay less for improved products over time, the need to generate profits, and survival. In his book, Toyota Production System, Ohno clearly articulated the specific problem he was trying to solve:

“Our problem was how to cut costs* while producing small numbers of many types of cars.” (p. 1)

What was the business need? The business need was the changing market that Toyota faced:

“… [a] marketplace [that] required the production of small quantities of many varieties under conditions of low demand…” (p. xiii)

This, in turn, required the creation of a production system responsive to Japan’s market conditions (buyers’ market) so that Toyota could:

“…make products that differ according to individual requirements…” (p. xiv)

The logic that drove Toyota’s transformation process. Should your logic be any different?

Toyota’s transformation was the change from batch-and-queue production to flow, to satisfy customers. And, of course, the transformation affected all other parts of the business as well. That is why Ohno said:

“…[it] means nothing less than adopting the Toyota production system as the management system of the whole company.” (p. 41)

LEIs Lean Transformation Framework says that you should take a “situational approach.” It says every situation unique and every countermeasure unique. It that true? In reality, your business environment, your problem, and your customers’ desires are the same as what Toyota faced in the late 1940s and still faces in 2017. Therefore, you need to figure out how to reduce costs while producing small numbers of many types of products. How will you do that? You must change from batch-and-queue to flow, and transform all other parts of the business to support that. A situational approach? For most businesses, that is nonsense.

But it is not just changes in processes throughout the company. It is also changes in mindset for both management and workers. The change in mindset – what Ohno called “a revolution in consciousness” (p. 14) – is especially difficult for managers because it encompasses numerous economic, social, political, and historical factors that serve as powerful bulwarks against changes in thinking (as well as recognizing simple realities such as buyers’ markets). This is why most Lean transformations fail, notwithstanding the ubiquity of Lean “busy work” and the lack of business results.

The change in manager’s mindset has proven to be the greatest challenge over the course of the 125-year history of progressive management. For example, when Ohno said “cut costs,” the conventional-mindset manager, whether in 1917 or 2017, immediately jumps to the idea of reducing headcount through layoffs. Hence, people today widely associate Lean with layoffs. But, Ohno never meant layoffs. He meant cutting costs in ways that did not harm people. In fact, he wanted people to benefit from the experience of participating in cost-cutting. How? By developing human capabilities; using their creativity and resourcefulness through hands-on and brain-on engagement in what he called “rationalization.” What Ohno meant by “rationalization” was “kaizen” – Toyota’s industrial engineering-based kaizen methods – to improve processes and the work, thereby improving productivity and cutting costs, while simultaneously satisfying customers and generating profit. This is why Taiichi Ohno stressed “the equally important respect for humanity” (p. xiii) in efforts to create and sustain the transformation.

Ohno said:

“I wanted to illustrate how it [TPS] reduces costs by improving productivity with human effort and innovation [kaizen] even in periods of severe low growth – not by increasing quantities.” (p. 119)

For every business that operates in a competitive environment – which is most businesses, whether for-profit or not-for-profit – the problem you are trying to solve today is virtually the same problem that Ohno and his team worked to solve over a 30-year period beginning in 1947. The situation is the same. The countermeasure is the same. And the process is the same.

“The Toyota production system, however, is not just a production system. I am confident it will reveal its strength as a management system adapted to today’s era of global markets…” (p. xv)

But, given that there are large differences between Lean transformation and Toyota transformation, you must make a choice: Lean transformation (ambiguous and open-ended, devoid of kaizen and other important umami), or Toyota transformation. Choose the former and you will increase the risk of losing ground to competitors. Choose the latter and not only will you work towards solving Ohno’s problem, you will instill organizational commitment and discipline to customer satisfaction. 

* If you rely solely on budgets and spreadsheets as your indicators of costs, then you will never understand TPS. When Ohno says “costs,” he is referring to anything that directly or indirectly creates or reduces cost, whether it is measurable or not, and whether it is visible or not. So, “costs” means: productivity, hiring, training, work, work signals, work standards, work sequence, machines, tooling, maintenance, queue time, set-up time, part-travel time, cycle time, lead-time, space, materials, consumables, inventories, warehouses, abnormal conditions, demand, parts, waste, unevenness, unreasonableness, spirit, challenge, creativity, innovation, teamwork, learning, evolution… and a thousand more things.

The post Why Aren’t You Solving Ohno’s Problem? appeared first on Bob Emiliani.

from Bob Emiliani http://www.bobemiliani.com/why-arent-you-solving-ohnos-problem/

[fallingupdownsideways]

Check Please characters as shit my friends have said

Bitty: "What are you going to do with three batches of snickerdoodles, may I ask?" "TAKE OVER THE WORLD." "Obviously."

Jack: As a person who has written super long essays in foreign languages, I'm sort of laughing at your pain.

Shitty: Glitter aliens have no concept of gender.

Lardo: "I want to hear all about it when you can update us puny mortals." "When did I become not a puny mortal?" "When you got a summer job at the SMITHSONIAN."

Ransom: Someone needs to tell your nervous system to calm its ganglia!

Holster: I think moving into college can best be summed up thusly: I've just pulled a pair of jeans out from under my bed. I don't know why they were there. I don't remember putting them there. I only know that they've been there for several days, and I haven't found it convenient till now to remove them.

Nursey: You know you've gone full hipster when it's second nature to take a record out of its inner and outer sleeve, wipe it, put it on the turntable and drop the needle but when confronted with a CD you've forgotten how to open the case

Chowder: Oh shit, oh shit, now who is it that's trying to seduce my girlfriend? Oh, it's me. That's okay then.

Dex: CUDDLING LOBSTERS SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD THING A+++++ 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND

Ford: There was a man voyeuristically learning acting.

Johnson: We now return to our regularly scheduled nonsense.

Kent: I’ve been kidnapped to an American apparel store. Send rescue.

Suzanne:...y'all stink at this 'good influences' thing, you know that?

[band-stars]

Check Please characters as shit my friends have said

Bitty: "What are you going to do with three batches of snickerdoodles, may I ask?" "TAKE OVER THE WORLD." "Obviously."

Jack: As a person who has written super long essays in foreign languages, I'm sort of laughing at your pain.

Shitty: Glitter aliens have no concept of gender.

Lardo: "I want to hear all about it when you can update us puny mortals." "When did I become not a puny mortal?" "When you got a summer job at the SMITHSONIAN."

Ransom: Someone needs to tell your nervous system to calm its ganglia!

Holster: I think moving into college can best be summed up thusly: I've just pulled a pair of jeans out from under my bed. I don't know why they were there. I don't remember putting them there. I only know that they've been there for several days, and I haven't found it convenient till now to remove them.

Nursey: You know you've gone full hipster when it's second nature to take a record out of its inner and outer sleeve, wipe it, put it on the turntable and drop the needle but when confronted with a CD you've forgotten how to open the case

Chowder: Oh shit, oh shit, now who is it that's trying to seduce my girlfriend? Oh, it's me. That's okay then.

Dex: CUDDLING LOBSTERS SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD THING A+++++ 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND

Ford: There was a man voyeuristically learning acting.

Johnson: We now return to our regularly scheduled nonsense.

Kent: I’ve been kidnapped to an American apparel store. Send rescue.

Suzanne:...y'all stink at this 'good influences' thing, you know that?

[seeking-further-illumination]

Check Please characters as shit my friends have said

Bitty: "What are you going to do with three batches of snickerdoodles, may I ask?" "TAKE OVER THE WORLD." "Obviously."

Jack: As a person who has written super long essays in foreign languages, I'm sort of laughing at your pain.

Shitty: Glitter aliens have no concept of gender.

Lardo: "I want to hear all about it when you can update us puny mortals." "When did I become not a puny mortal?" "When you got a summer job at the SMITHSONIAN."

Ransom: Someone needs to tell your nervous system to calm its ganglia!

Holster: I think moving into college can best be summed up thusly: I've just pulled a pair of jeans out from under my bed. I don't know why they were there. I don't remember putting them there. I only know that they've been there for several days, and I haven't found it convenient till now to remove them.

Nursey: You know you've gone full hipster when it's second nature to take a record out of its inner and outer sleeve, wipe it, put it on the turntable and drop the needle but when confronted with a CD you've forgotten how to open the case

Chowder: Oh shit, oh shit, now who is it that's trying to seduce my girlfriend? Oh, it's me. That's okay then.

Dex: CUDDLING LOBSTERS SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD THING A+++++ 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND

Ford: There was a man voyeuristically learning acting.

Johnson: We now return to our regularly scheduled nonsense.

Kent: I’ve been kidnapped to an American apparel store. Send rescue.

Suzanne:...y'all stink at this 'good influences' thing, you know that?

[sroloc--elbisivni]

Check Please characters as shit my friends have said

Bitty: "What are you going to do with three batches of snickerdoodles, may I ask?" "TAKE OVER THE WORLD." "Obviously."

Jack: As a person who has written super long essays in foreign languages, I'm sort of laughing at your pain.

Shitty: Glitter aliens have no concept of gender.

Lardo: "I want to hear all about it when you can update us puny mortals." "When did I become not a puny mortal?" "When you got a summer job at the SMITHSONIAN."

Ransom: Someone needs to tell your nervous system to calm its ganglia!

Holster: I think moving into college can best be summed up thusly: I've just pulled a pair of jeans out from under my bed. I don't know why they were there. I don't remember putting them there. I only know that they've been there for several days, and I haven't found it convenient till now to remove them.

Nursey: You know you've gone full hipster when it's second nature to take a record out of its inner and outer sleeve, wipe it, put it on the turntable and drop the needle but when confronted with a CD you've forgotten how to open the case

Chowder: Oh shit, oh shit, now who is it that's trying to seduce my girlfriend? Oh, it's me. That's okay then.

Dex: CUDDLING LOBSTERS SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD THING A+++++ 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND

Ford: There was a man voyeuristically learning acting.

Johnson: We now return to our regularly scheduled nonsense.

Kent: I’ve been kidnapped to an American apparel store. Send rescue.

Suzanne:...y'all stink at this 'good influences' thing, you know that?

[dougiesflow]

Check Please characters as shit my friends have said

Bitty: "What are you going to do with three batches of snickerdoodles, may I ask?" "TAKE OVER THE WORLD." "Obviously."

Jack: As a person who has written super long essays in foreign languages, I'm sort of laughing at your pain.

Shitty: Glitter aliens have no concept of gender.

Lardo: "I want to hear all about it when you can update us puny mortals." "When did I become not a puny mortal?" "When you got a summer job at the SMITHSONIAN."

Ransom: Someone needs to tell your nervous system to calm its ganglia!

Holster: I think moving into college can best be summed up thusly: I've just pulled a pair of jeans out from under my bed. I don't know why they were there. I don't remember putting them there. I only know that they've been there for several days, and I haven't found it convenient till now to remove them.

Nursey: You know you've gone full hipster when it's second nature to take a record out of its inner and outer sleeve, wipe it, put it on the turntable and drop the needle but when confronted with a CD you've forgotten how to open the case

Chowder: Oh shit, oh shit, now who is it that's trying to seduce my girlfriend? Oh, it's me. That's okay then.

Dex: CUDDLING LOBSTERS SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD THING A+++++ 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND

Ford: There was a man voyeuristically learning acting.

Johnson: We now return to our regularly scheduled nonsense.

Kent: I’ve been kidnapped to an American apparel store. Send rescue.

Suzanne:...y'all stink at this 'good influences' thing, you know that?

[paniniwitharugula]

Check Please characters as shit my friends have said

Bitty: "What are you going to do with three batches of snickerdoodles, may I ask?" "TAKE OVER THE WORLD." "Obviously."

Jack: As a person who has written super long essays in foreign languages, I'm sort of laughing at your pain.

Shitty: Glitter aliens have no concept of gender.

Lardo: "I want to hear all about it when you can update us puny mortals." "When did I become not a puny mortal?" "When you got a summer job at the SMITHSONIAN."

Ransom: Someone needs to tell your nervous system to calm its ganglia!

Holster: I think moving into college can best be summed up thusly: I've just pulled a pair of jeans out from under my bed. I don't know why they were there. I don't remember putting them there. I only know that they've been there for several days, and I haven't found it convenient till now to remove them.

Nursey: You know you've gone full hipster when it's second nature to take a record out of its inner and outer sleeve, wipe it, put it on the turntable and drop the needle but when confronted with a CD you've forgotten how to open the case

Chowder: Oh shit, oh shit, now who is it that's trying to seduce my girlfriend? Oh, it's me. That's okay then.

Dex: CUDDLING LOBSTERS SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD THING A+++++ 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND

Ford: There was a man voyeuristically learning acting.

Johnson: We now return to our regularly scheduled nonsense.

Kent: I’ve been kidnapped to an American apparel store. Send rescue.

Suzanne:...y'all stink at this 'good influences' thing, you know that?

[sudenmorsian]

Check Please characters as shit my friends have said

Bitty: "What are you going to do with three batches of snickerdoodles, may I ask?" "TAKE OVER THE WORLD." "Obviously."

Jack: As a person who has written super long essays in foreign languages, I'm sort of laughing at your pain.

Shitty: Glitter aliens have no concept of gender.

Lardo: "I want to hear all about it when you can update us puny mortals." "When did I become not a puny mortal?" "When you got a summer job at the SMITHSONIAN."

Ransom: Someone needs to tell your nervous system to calm its ganglia!

Holster: I think moving into college can best be summed up thusly: I've just pulled a pair of jeans out from under my bed. I don't know why they were there. I don't remember putting them there. I only know that they've been there for several days, and I haven't found it convenient till now to remove them.

Nursey: You know you've gone full hipster when it's second nature to take a record out of its inner and outer sleeve, wipe it, put it on the turntable and drop the needle but when confronted with a CD you've forgotten how to open the case

Chowder: Oh shit, oh shit, now who is it that's trying to seduce my girlfriend? Oh, it's me. That's okay then.

Dex: CUDDLING LOBSTERS SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD THING A+++++ 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND

Ford: There was a man voyeuristically learning acting.

Johnson: We now return to our regularly scheduled nonsense.

Kent: I’ve been kidnapped to an American apparel store. Send rescue.

Suzanne:...y'all stink at this 'good influences' thing, you know that?

[homosociallyyours]

Check Please characters as shit my friends have said

Bitty: "What are you going to do with three batches of snickerdoodles, may I ask?" "TAKE OVER THE WORLD." "Obviously."

Jack: As a person who has written super long essays in foreign languages, I'm sort of laughing at your pain.

Shitty: Glitter aliens have no concept of gender.

Lardo: "I want to hear all about it when you can update us puny mortals." "When did I become not a puny mortal?" "When you got a summer job at the SMITHSONIAN."

Ransom: Someone needs to tell your nervous system to calm its ganglia!

Holster: I think moving into college can best be summed up thusly: I've just pulled a pair of jeans out from under my bed. I don't know why they were there. I don't remember putting them there. I only know that they've been there for several days, and I haven't found it convenient till now to remove them.

Nursey: You know you've gone full hipster when it's second nature to take a record out of its inner and outer sleeve, wipe it, put it on the turntable and drop the needle but when confronted with a CD you've forgotten how to open the case

Chowder: Oh shit, oh shit, now who is it that's trying to seduce my girlfriend? Oh, it's me. That's okay then.

Dex: CUDDLING LOBSTERS SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD THING A+++++ 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND

Ford: There was a man voyeuristically learning acting.

Johnson: We now return to our regularly scheduled nonsense.

Kent: I’ve been kidnapped to an American apparel store. Send rescue.

Suzanne:...y'all stink at this 'good influences' thing, you know that?

[bittitilate]

Check Please characters as shit my friends have said

Bitty: "What are you going to do with three batches of snickerdoodles, may I ask?" "TAKE OVER THE WORLD." "Obviously."

Jack: As a person who has written super long essays in foreign languages, I'm sort of laughing at your pain.

Shitty: Glitter aliens have no concept of gender.

Lardo: "I want to hear all about it when you can update us puny mortals." "When did I become not a puny mortal?" "When you got a summer job at the SMITHSONIAN."

Ransom: Someone needs to tell your nervous system to calm its ganglia!

Holster: I think moving into college can best be summed up thusly: I've just pulled a pair of jeans out from under my bed. I don't know why they were there. I don't remember putting them there. I only know that they've been there for several days, and I haven't found it convenient till now to remove them.

Nursey: You know you've gone full hipster when it's second nature to take a record out of its inner and outer sleeve, wipe it, put it on the turntable and drop the needle but when confronted with a CD you've forgotten how to open the case

Chowder: Oh shit, oh shit, now who is it that's trying to seduce my girlfriend? Oh, it's me. That's okay then.

Dex: CUDDLING LOBSTERS SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD THING A+++++ 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND

Ford: There was a man voyeuristically learning acting.

Johnson: We now return to our regularly scheduled nonsense.

Kent: I’ve been kidnapped to an American apparel store. Send rescue.

Suzanne:...y'all stink at this 'good influences' thing, you know that?