Community living is a beautiful thing!
Apartment (Community) Living has become the order of the day and gaining more popularity over time. The car ownership and utilization example (in the previous post) can be extended to cover the scenario in an apartment community where hundreds of families reside. And, in most of the cases, each family owns one car or more. We do not have to do the maths again to ascertain the extent of capacity utilization in the context of all the cars available to the residents of the apartment community. Let’s us take a look at the situation from a slightly different angle. At any given point of time during the day, if one takes a look at the parking lots of the apartment community, one finds so many cars parked in the parking lots! This is the case at really any point of time during any day. That essentially means, in the context of that apartment community, the total supply (availability) of cars far exceeds the demand, if we look at the actual utilization. If, on an average, N number of cars are always found parked at any point of time during the day, the supply is more, by N number of cars, than the demand. If the total number of cars available in the apartment community is M, the unused capacity is (N/M) %, in simple terms. However, the actual unused capacity is way bigger than (N/M) % (based on the ‘effective practical capacity utilization’ calculation explained in the previous part | post).
So, what is the smarter way recommended by Lean Living in this scenario? As stated earlier, Lean Living is a Philosophy and a ‘way of life’. One can practice Lean Living if, and only if, one truly believes in this philosophy and is honestly eager to adopt this ‘way of life’. That is true in the context of an apartment community as well. If all the residents of that apartment community believe in this philosophy and are honestly eager to adopt this ‘way of life’, of course, there are arrangements prescribed by Lean Living that can produce great results. Let’s discuss one such arrangement here. The arrangement may sound hypothetical. But, in the world of Lean Living, it is perfectly feasible. Here is the arrangement described below, through an example (Illustration).
Castle Pine Apartment Community has 300 resident families. There are 325 cars in the apartment community. At any point of time, on any day, at least 75 cars, on an average, are found parked in the parking lots. That suggests that the residents of the apartment community really need 75 less cars than they actually have. The residents decide to go Lean about it. This is the scheme they come up with. It is decided to get rid of 75 cars, up front. So, they sell those cars and the owners of those cars receive the amount realized from selling those. The residents understand the theory of “Net Effective Practical Capacity Utilization” (NEPCU) (described in the previous part | section). They know that most of the cars in the apartment community are used to travel to workplaces on most of the days of a week. And, in most of the cases, only one person uses one car to commute to the workplace. All the cars used for commuting to workplaces remain parked over most part of the day in the parking lots of the workplaces. After a work day, not more than 25% of the cars used for commuting to workplaces are used for other purposes. 80% of the school-going children in the apartment community have school-vans | buses to take them to their schools. Parents of 20% of school-going children give their children a ride to their (children’s) schools.
Residents identify that all the schools are located in 12 areas of the city and the workplaces, in 15 areas of the city. Each of the areas is either categorized as a School-Zone or a Work-Zone. They do a detailed analysis and prepare a chart to depict the number of people | children commuting to each Work-Zone and School-Zone. It is ascertained that not more than 8% of the families need a car (for use by the stay-at-home moms) after the primary (or sole) car of the family is put to use for commuting to the workplace.
Residents do a detailed analysis to arrive at an estimated quantum of resources (cars) required for various need-segments. They estimate that about 60 cars (each with a capacity to carry 7 passengers) are required to get 400 people to their workplaces every day. They (Residents) think, they can manage with lesser number of cars for this purpose. However, that may introduce some waiting time and dependency. They introduce a car-pooling mechanism (with those 60 cars) to commute to and from the workplaces. They ascertain that 20 more cars are required to cater to the needs of people who do not go to work (stay-at-home moms and others) during the day. Parents of 20% of school-going children who do not have a school-bus | van service, hire the service of a reputed local van-service provider on a pay-per-use basis. In that arrangement, the service provider provides enough vans on every school-day to transport those children to and from their schools. The provider charges on the basis of number of hours vans actually used for, at a specified rate. 10 retired residents of the community volunteer to be a part of the newly formed Community Transportation Committee to take care of all the aspects of the lean Transportation System for the apartment community.
Under the scheme, all the cars are sold off (except for the 20 regular size and 60 7-seat-capacity, which are relatively more fuel-efficient) at their market value. The proportionate sale-proceeds are handed over to the respective owners of the cars. And, this is not the limit. There are more opportunities for further optimization. However, to keep this illustration simple, let’s not include additional optimization methods here. Many finer details have also been intentionally excluded from this illustration to keep it simple. Let’s save those for a later date (better day!). This arrangement described in this illustration works brilliantly. It benefits the society, environment and the residents of Castle Pine Apartment Community. With so many cars gone, some of the parking lots get added to children’s play areas and some get converted into mini kitchen-gardens etc. Money saved by not owning a car, in appropriate cases, may be used in irrigation, farming, forestation, free (subsidized) basic education and other social welfare activities. NEXT >>
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