The process says "I can't do it", and the Panama Canal says "watch and learn."
Whenever the phrase "change in the process" appears, many organizations react like a system after detecting a threat - first with a blockade:
"It can't be done."
"We have always done it this way."
"In theory maybe, but in practice..."
And somewhere in the background you can still hear a quiet: "Maybe let's come back to it next quarter?"
Now imagine that this "process" is... the Panama Canal.
For years, the Panama Canal handled the standard so-called Panamax ships:
- 294 m long
- 32 m wide
- 12 m draft
- 5,000 containers on one ship
Everything looked fine... but the customer wanted greater profits, so:
- transport more containers,
- and heavier loads,
- in a single trip.
And the canal? The canal was like a production line hearing:
"The new product is only a little bigger, you can handle it, right?"
Instead of saying:
"It can't be done."
"It does not fit the specification."
"We never designed the process for that."
Panama did something bold:
it expanded the canal.
In 2016, new locks were opened, adapted to Neo-Panamax ships:
- 370 m long
- 51 m wide
- 15 m draft
- even 15,000 containers on one ship
Cost? About 5.25 billion dollars.
Pressure? Global.
The option "let us stop the process for a while"? It did not exist.
Does it remind you of something?
It is exactly the same story as in production:
- the product changed,
- the customer wants more,
- and the process... can no longer keep up.
The Panama Canal reminds us of one important thing:
the process is not sacred - it is supposed to serve growth, not block it.
And if one of the most important trade routes in the world can be rebuilt while operating...
then we can also get our processes under control before reality does it for us.