Robots are not lean

A common sight in South Africa at rush hour is traffic backed up onto the highway at off ramps bringing the left hand lane to a standstill.  This is particularly frustrating to the South African commuter as the capacity of our highways to move traffic is significantly reduced resulting in delays and increased commuting time.

Have you ever wondered why “motorways” in the UK, despite a far higher traffic density than their South African counterparts, are seldom plagued with backed up, stationery traffic at off ramps?  Traffic at off ramps in the UK are controlled by traffic circles (or roundabouts, for the benefit of any British readers) whilst traffic at South African off ramps is controlled by robots (or traffic lights).

The control of traffic at an intersection by a robot is a typical batch and queue process.   Traffic in one direction is stopped by a red light, forced to queue until an economic batch size is achieved before being signaled by a green light to proceed, one batch at a time.  A traffic circle, however, is designed to facilitate continuous flow of traffic through the intersection.  In this way, no traffic is allowed to build up at intersections and to spill back onto the motorway.

Just as a traffic circle allows traffic to flow unimpeded towards its destination rather than building up and congesting our roads, Lean allows our products to flow through our factories to our customers rather than building up as inventory and choking  both our factory floors and our balance sheets.