Think about how you drive your car. You don’t wait until your wheels are on the shoulder or halfway into the oncoming lane before you react. You constantly make small, incremental adjustments based on what’s ahead to stay between the lines.

The Flowcasting process is really all about looking ahead and taking corrective action to solve potential problems before they become actual problems, versus constantly dealing with the aftermath of crises that have already happened. Time spent on fire prevention (improving forecasts, working to relieve constraints and reduce lead-times) is far more valuable than time spent firefighting.

The Titanic struck an iceberg in the middle of the night - at 11:40PM on April 14th, 1912. If she had approached that same iceberg at the same rate of speed with the same man at the helm a mere 8 hours earlier, she never would have sunk. Sometimes the difference between a simple course correction and utter disaster is the ability to see it coming.