Cheaper by the dozen

My wife and I watched The Founder the other night, which tells the story about how Ray Kroc, a down on his luck milkshake mixer traveling salesman turned Richard and Maurice McDonald's innovative fast food restaurant, McDonald's, into the biggest restaurant business in the world.  The McDonald brothers had developed their Speedee Service System  to create a fast food business that was far different from any other restaurant around at the time (and on which most fast food restaurants are based upon to this day).  Anyone who has had some training in Lean/Six Sigma will be very impressed with their system!  

I've actually talked about this scene in a previous post, titled "You should only go to the refrigerator once...".  Incidentally, the title of that post was taken from another kitchen scene from the television series The Brady Bunch, which could have been based (but wasn't) on another popular movie released in 1968 called Yours, Mine, and Ours, starring Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball.  Apparently my wife's family used to watch this movie every year on Christmas Eve when she was growing up.  It's a great movie!

Fonda plays a Navy Chief Warrant Officer, widower, and father of ten children, while Ball plays a nurse, widow, and mother of eight children.  Imagine having to coordinate the lives of 18 children in one household!  Lucille Ball steals the show here, but as you can guess from the theme of this post, Fonda's character tries to run the house like a Navy ship.  There's a great scene from the movie that shows how Fonda's character manages who gets what bedroom, who gets to use the bathroom at what time, etc that reminds me a lot of the Speedee Service System and Lean/Six Sigma.

While Yours, Mine, and Ours was based on a real family, it wasn't the Gilbreth family, who were the subject of the 1950 movie, Cheaper by the Dozen.  Frank Gilbreth and his wife Lillian Gilbreth (along with their 12 children) are perhaps best known for the movie, but Frank and Lillian conducted a number of time and motion studies throughout their careers to eliminate waste and improve efficiency in the manufacturing industry.  Their work is often associated with that of Frederick Winslow Taylor, the so-called "Father of scientific management" - indeed, they were contemporaries and occasional collaborators and competitors.  The film talks about how they both applied their time and motion studies to improving how they ran their home.

I would encourage you to watch all three movies, though stick with the originals and not the remakes, which just aren't as good.  Pay close attention to how Lean/Six Sigma principles are used in all three!  Let's go to the movies!