There is a common myth taught in business schools: that there were three competing factors in business – speed, price, and quality. “You can have any two of them,” professors will say, “But you can’t have all three.” The idea is that, as an example, if you want something fast, you must sacrifice price and/or quality.

There are a couple of problems with this idea. The most obvious one is that, most of the time, it simply isn’t true. But then, you’d expect somebody who is an advocate of learning Lean thinking to say that. (The other major flaw is that the “quality” in this assertion is, at best, ill-defined, but I’ll deal with that another time.)

I’m certain this assertion about time, speed, and quality isn’t true because of seen so many counterexamples, often having to do with correcting, at no or little cost, poorly managed logistics and poorly design processes. Continue reading →