Lean Processes in Nature
Duration: 4 to 8 hours
Target Audience: Engineers, product designers, R&D managers, corporate heads
Brief:
The mathematical 'zero' is a gift of India to the world. Credit goes to Bhamhagupta and Baskara II of ancient India. The credit for applying the concept of zero to operations goes to Japanese, notably to Toyota. The philosophy of lean revolves around zero: Zero inventories, zero setup times, zero defects, zero breakdown, zero paperwork and so on. While the concept of lean in factory operations is a recent phenomenon, nature has been using only lean principles from day one of her creations which began about 3.5 billion years ago. Nature's lean principles will be illustrated with examples.
Take the example of chicken's oviduct. How a chicken makes an egg, and how an egg becomes a chicken is a deep intriguing mystery. Developmental biology has understood and explained some bits and pieces of this process. We cannot create an egg from a handful of grain, but a chicken does it all the time. All birds do it, including some mammals (Echidna, Platypus, and Spiny Anteater). The extraordinary intelligence of this process is embedded in their bodies, not in their minds. Ten thousand Nobel laureates can neither explain nor duplicate this process— a handful of grain becoming an egg —in their labs.
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First a hen eats, let us say, a handful of grain. This grain sustains the chicken and also, some portion of it is converted into follicles in its ovary. These tiny follicles travel through the oviduct, which is about 70 cm in length. An egg is manufactured inside the chicken’s oviduct, one egg every twenty-four hours is released during the breeding seasons. The frequency and number of eggs per clutch vary with the species.
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For a moment treat a chicken’s oviduct as a factory that produces eggs. Imagine that you become a tiny observer of few hundred nanometers in size with a still smaller flashlight in hand and enter the oviduct of a chicken. Let us assume that your presence with a flashlight in your hand does not disturb the manufacturing process inside the oviduct. As you watch the few finite steps in this manufacturing process, you will be filled with amazement and wonder. First, an egg (still unfertilized) is made in the ovary, and as it moves through the oviduct by a small distance, it may be fertilized (life is created) and compacted into a spherical shape. Once it attains predetermined size and shape, the growth of yolk stops. This process takes about 30 min. Then, as it moves a little more distance to the next stage, the egg-white (albumen) and chalazae (to hold the yolk in the center of the egg, against the forces of gravity) are added, which takes about another 2 hours. Then, traveling a little farther, two egg membranes made of keratin, are wrapped around the albumen to keep it in an ovoid shape. Then the synthesis of egg-shell takes place, which takes about 20 hours. Then, the egg is ejected out into a wider world. By now, you have traveled about 70 cm through a muscular-tube called oviduct, observing this process for 24 hours. You exit filled with a sense of wonder that words cannot describe.
The chief features of this Nature’s remarkable factory, the oviduct, are:
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The oviduct is like a moving workshop, silent and lights out factory, where an egg is manufactured, at the rate of one egg every 24 hours. What comes out of the oviduct is a miracle. Egg has various parts, and each part has its own form and fulfils one or many functions. And further:
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Are these not characteristics of lean manufacturing? The oviduct is like a moving workshop, silent and lights out factory, where an egg is manufactured, at the rate of one egg every 24 hours. What comes out of the oviduct is a miracle. Egg has various parts, and each part has its own form and fulfils one or many functions. Egg as a whole may be bridge to next generation.