From chaos to control - applying Lean methods to cyber-physical systems at Wayfair

Cyber-physical systems are increasing in prevalence and impact. These systems have physical mechanisms deeply intertwined with controlling software. Human interaction raises complexity and unpredictability even further.

Wayfair, a major European online retailer, faced these challenges when a cyber-physical system was installed at their UK fulfilment centre to process orders with peaks of +10K orders/day. When it first went live, the system had a failure rate of 17%. This was unacceptable as it required costly manual sortation to ensure customers weren’t impacted. This session will cover how chaos was controlled, by applying Lean methods such as cross-functional teams, data-based prioritisation, and observability to reduce the process failure rate from 17% to 1% in just 8 months.

Participants Takeaways: 

• When, why and how to form cross-functional teams where IT engineers are in the minority
• How to transform a mass of chaotic, cross-discipline problems into an iterative, incremental, improvement plan
• How to apply software observability principles to cyber-physical systems
• How to improve incident response in a large scale, business-critical, cyber-physical system

Themes: Software Delivery, Observability, Cyber-physical systems, IoT, Incident response, Lean, Process improvement