I thought I wrote about this several years ago, but I guess I didn’t (I can’t find it, if I did). Experimental test of airplane boarding methods:
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We have seen experimentally that there is a marked difference in the time required to board an aircraft depending upon the boarding method used. The evidence strongly supports the heuristic argument from Ste en that methods that parallelize the boarding process by more efficiently utilizing the aisle (having more passengers stow their luggage simultaneously) will board more quickly than those that do not. The relative benefit of the application of this theory will grow with the length of the aircraft. Here, we used a 12-row mock airplane, but a more typical airplane with twice that number of rows will gain more by the implementation of parallelized boarding methods.
How this improvement scales with the cabin length is different for each method. For the Ste en method, the benefit will scale almost linearly. If the airplane is twice as long, the time savings will be nearly twice as much since the density of luggage-stowing passengers will remain the same and the boarding will still be maximally parallel. For Wilma and random boarding the benefit will not be as strong since the benefits of parallel boarding are randomly distributed along the length of the cabin instead of being regularly distributed.
I am not optimistic that airlines will even test out this method. People tend to think companies apply sensible, proven concepts and methods. But that is much less likely to be done than people think. The failure of many places to use simple queuing theory improvement (customers should form one line and be served the next available person not form many individual lines) is one example of failures by companies to apply decades old proven better methods. The poor adoption of multivariate designed experiments is another. Applying better ideas is a process that is not done very efficiently in business, health care, education or even science and engineering – in fact in any human endeavor. This is a waste that impacts each of us every day. It is also an opportunity for you to gain advantages just by applying all the good ideas lying around that others are ignoring. You need to test the ideas out in your setting (using the PDSA cycle in an organizational context a good method).
Related: Engineering the Boarding of Airplanes – Successful Emergency Plane Landing in the Hudson River – Checklists Save Lives – Improving Engineering Education
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Cardiac Cath Lab: Innovation on Site
Posted on March 28, 2009 Comments (1)
I manage several blogs on several topics that are related. Often blog posts stay firmly in the domain of one blog of the other. Occasionally the topic blurs the lines between the various blogs (which I like). This post ties directly to my Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog. The management principles I believe in are very similar to engineering principles (no surprise given this blog). And actual observation in situ is important – to understand fully the situation and what would be helpful. Management relying on reports instead of seeing things in action results in many poor decisions. And engineers doing so also results in poor decisions.
Getting to Gemba – a day in the Cardiac Cath Lab by John Cooke
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I didn’t disgrace myself and I’ve been invited back for another day or so. What did I learn that I didn’t know before? The key things I learnt were:
The whole experience reminded me that in terms of innovation getting to gemba is critical. When was the last time you saw your products in use up-close and personal?
Related: Jeff Bezos Spends a Week Working in Amazon’s Kentucky Distribution Center – Toyota Engineering Development Process – Marissa Mayer on Innovation at Google – Be Careful What You Measure – S&P 500 CEOs are Often Engineering Graduates – Experiment Quickly and Often
Categories: Engineering, Health Care, Products, Research, Students, Technology
Tags: commentary, Engineering, engineers, Health Care, innovation, management, Products, UK