Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance
It's Monday, June 5th, 1944. The largest seaborne invasion in history is going to begin tomorrow and countless husbands, fathers, and sons are saying their last "goodbyes" to their families and fellow soldiers. Operation Neptune has been meticulously planned and precisely timed to the smallest detail in order to coordinate thousands of Navy ships, aircraft, and troops. Tomorrow we will land in Normandy and the siege will forever be known as D-Day.
To begin the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi occupation, many countries, primarily the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada combined their might to become the Allied forces. In order to successfully coordinate every mission component and accomplish their mission, the Allied forces utilized a simple and powerful tactic. This tactic is the utilization of staging areas.
While the United States and Canada are over 4,000 miles across the Atlantic from the beaches of Normandy, England is only a little over 100 miles.
Over 4,000 miles from USA (Red) vs Just Over 100 miles from England (Purple)
To allow for the synchronization of different units and ensure that troops and supplies would be ready to go at the right moment, staging areas were established in England to prepare and assemble the massive number of troops and equipment needed for the invasion. These staging areas served as the nerve center of the operation, where soldiers and their equipment were organized, briefed, and loaded onto landing craft. As a result, the D-Day operation, despite its complexity and the chaos of war, proceeded relatively smoothly.
Principle
While the utilization of staging areas is neither complex nor a novel concept, the potential applications and benefits of this practice far exceed its use in industrial and logistical facilities where it is most often seen. The practice is very simple: designate an "in-between" space for items and people to go before proceeding to another destination. However, how this space is organized and where it is located can have huge applications that can save hours of time while also reducing the likelihood of error. In order to set up and effectively use staging areas, use the following steps.
First, place the staging area in a strategic location where it will be fast, easy, and convenient to pull from this area when needed.
Second, ensure that the space is clearly separated from everything around it. Whether this is done with floor markings or physical barriers, it is important that there is no confusion what belong where.
Create a standardized framework for how this area will be used, taking into consideration when, how, and why items are placed into this area.
In the example of the Allied Forces, the staging area was strategically placed in England, which was as close as possible to where the Nazi soldiers were waiting while still keeping everyone safe. This staging area was then broken down into zones where each team knew what resources were theirs and how they would mobilize. Lastly, to ensure seamless execution, the teams were then given clear direction on how they would proceed to their respective battle stations so they could invade France in an organized fashion.
Application
In industrial and manufacturing environments, it is easier to see how this principle is utilized because the scale is so large with there typically being thousands of different products organized in various zones. However, there are practical applications regardless of industry as well as opportunities at home.
In the construction field, rather than having giant piles divided by material, place the exact quantities you need of each item right near where it will be built.
In cooking, rather than keeping ingredients and spices spread around the kitchen, place each ingredient near where it will be prepared with the measurements that will be needed.
Before going to bed at night, place everything that will be needed in the morning on a rack near the door, even including the outfit that will be worn!
In doing this, you will reduce the energy and time needed to sort through and decide on what is needed and will instead be in the position to simply DO, which will make others wonder how you are able to be so fast and calculated.
Also...this is bloody brilliant, Batman