| Construction and manufacturing are very much about following defined instructions and processes and not updating or deviating from them without good reason. (Obviously there's a lot of Get Stuff Done too, where people ignore the above rules). Manufacturing Management is also all about metrics and counting productivity. Trying to apply similar metrics to tech leads to things like counting developers lines of code or defects. --- Edit: another aspect of manufacturing is limiting waste. In Toyota Production system this is called Muda - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muda_(Japanese_term) Waste of overproduction (largest waste) Waste of time on hand (waiting) Waste of transportation Waste of processing itself Waste of excess inventory Waste of movement Waste of making defective products Waste of underutilized workers You can look at the other goals of TPS and see how they may or may not apply to software engineering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System I'm not saying these are bad ideas or don't apply to software engineering, but I am saying that they don't apply in the same way. |
With software the design-made-code, where software is what in automotive would be considered the design process is 100% of the cost, the shipping of bits is 0%. In automotive, it is more like 5% design vs 95% building the car, goes the other way.
When people apply manufacturing methodologies to design practices, it rarely works out. "Design" is messy, but people expect to be able to apply a manufacturing-like "LEAN" process to it. They are mixing goslings and goats.