Q: The deposition is a little high. What can we do?

A: Let's reduce the time.

Q: Do we think somebody has recently INCREASED THE TIME?

A: No. Why?

Q: Well, if the solution is to just decrease the time, then either somebody has increased it, or we're turning one knob to compensate for a change made somewhere else, whether knowingly or unknowingly. Is that smart?

A: I don't know. That's what we've always done.

Q: Do we want to continue to do what we've always done?

A: We always have.

This conversation may appear a bit humorous. Actually, if we're interested in improving processes and making money, it's anything but funny.

What is the problem? Every time we just adjust a time to compensate for a process shift we haven't studied and driven to root cause to remove the assignable cause, we lost an opportunity to learn. And that means we lose an opportunity to improve.

We're selling out our obligation to continually improve the process and settling for "appeasement" - just attempting to move the process mean back, without attempting to learn why it moved or try to remove the cause of movement.

Why am I reminded of Jacob and Esau?