Glossary


Omnidimensional Measures

Omnidimensional measures are modifiers that are applied to more specific units. They can be recognized by words like "of" and "in", which appear in their names. The words "change, growth and magnitude" appear in such measures as "growth in sales", "change in enrollment", and "magnitude of the threat".

Absent their associated units, most omnidimensional measures are meaningless. There are a few, however, that can be combined to describe more generalizable patterns that may be compared on a relative basis. These are the ones, with words like "variety", "rate of change", "acceleration", and "lead time", that interest me most.

Rate of Serial Change

It is axiomatic that everything and anything is subject to change. However, change is difficult to conceptualize because everyday usage tends to give it two different meanings. In my view, the correct interpretation of change views it as the difference in a given element, measured at two different times. The other common meaning views it as the difference between two elements measured at the same time. Because of this confusion, I prefer to avoid the use of change wherever it could be confused or to refer to the more specific term, the serial rate of change . The serial rate of change reflects the tendency of elements to obsolete and replace one another. This is the form of change that poses the greatest threat to most organizations.

Variety

According to Ross Ashby (1956), variety is "the number of distinctly different elements in a set." If one can define a consistent criteria for what constitutes a distinct difference, variety can be used to measure any type of element. One can speak equally of a "variety of skills", "product variety", "variety of emotions", "variety of customers". Although it is hard to compare the variety of skills required in today's economy to the variety of products that are manufactured, it is not unreasonable to believe that their joint growth might somehow be linked.

Lead Time

While the term lead time is widely used, it remains relatively ill-defined. In a recent case study with Lorraine Gardiner, we found intriguing evidence that, absent an enforced organization standard, different employees are likely to use very different definitions, even when they belong to the same small work team (e.g., customer service, marketing or production scheduling).

Even more interesting was the fact that while most employees were able to give reasonable 'off-the-cuff' estimates of average lead time,all of the employees greatly underestimated the variance in the leadtimes, typically by a factor of two.

The sample size in this case study was too small (n=13) to support generalization of these conclusions, but we would like someday to repeat the study with a larger set of more diverse individuals .


Uzumeri Home Page

<<<<< Link to Auburn Home Page