Minimalism
A Distiller, Not an Aggregator, of Information Be
Named for equivalent back-to-basics movements in art and architecture, Minimalism is a set of design principles for building intellectual assets and speeding process improvement. It is minimal in the sense that it uses minimum and only statistically significant information to achieve order of magnitude in savings by significantly reducing variation in processes.
The predictable impact of disruption on an Enterprise, Performance or Process.
Minimalism is a management architecture; it recognizes that what sets firms apart today are knowledge and expertise and articulates a systematic approach to managing these assets.
Problem solving in Minimalism emphasizes understanding an entire business process in order to ensure that solutions significantly improve output not just of one process step, but of the entire process. It involves using the business environment as a laboratory in which solutions can be hypothesized and statistically sound experiments designed and run to test them. Ultimately, sets of statistically validated models are developed for all significant processes.
The systematic marshaling of physical, statistical, and control models builds process knowledge to levels previously unattainable. The knowledge base that evolves from modeling and refining processes both accelerates the optimization of the process under study and facilitates the planning and design of future processes.
The results of implementation:
- fewer interventions,
- far less, and more highly focused, information,
- and manifestly clearer paths to improvement,
Minimalism provides a framework for rethinking business processes in a comprehensive, integrated, systematic, and practical manner that can be readily implemented.
boost morale among those involved in the practice of Minimalism. Drastic reductions in inventory and work-in-process can be seen immediately and contribute to the bottom line, in the short term. In the long term, en¬hanced problem-solving abilities, robust process knowledge, and production flexibility lead to sustainable bottom line improvement.
These benefits are part and parcel of what is perhaps the greatest benefit of Minimalism. In this era of advanced manufacturing technologies and virtual networks, with machine capacity readily available for purchase or rent and little to impede the transfer of technology and technological know-how, it is process knowledge and expertise, intellectual as opposed to physical assets, that increasingly sets firms apart. Minimalism is at heart a systematic approach to managing intellectual assets. Focusing expertise exclusively on disruptions and “things gone wrong” provides a basis for building a selective body of knowledge that can serve to minimize what goes wrong in the future.
The principles of Minimalism have been applied successfully to activities throughout the value chain. A number of client firms and consulting organizations with which MNI Partners has been associated have embraced Minimalism as a guiding framework for their own pursuits.