The American football season is full swing. The NFL is celebrating 100 years of this game of athletic and mental matchups. As an organization, the NFL is concerned with increasing its income by providing an entertainment product. To this end, each year it makes changes to its policies as they apply to players and clubs. They adjust in-game rules when defenses become too stifling, so that games are viewer-friendly and high-scoring. They investigate new technologies to upgrade equipment in ways that improve player safety. The League tweaks officiating practices based on perceived flaws or egregious errors from the previous season, to mixed results.
With the agony and ecstasy of each week’s antics and heroics, I can’t help but dream about applying Lean principles to making the game better in general, and for my Seahawks in particular. At the moment I am doing some work with Total Productive Maintenance, or TPM, which deals with making plant operations and production systems more effective. Here are some thoughts on how to get the best out of an NFL franchise by applying TPM principles.