How can you travel lighter without sacrificing comfort on the far end of a trip? The answer to this question is another variation on the theme of lead time.
My family really only travels regularly (probably 90% of our travel) to two locations: my in-laws house and my sisters house. These are generally weekend trips at regular intervals throughout the year. Without fail the most likely time for everyone involved to be frustrated and impatient is during packing and loading the car. By understanding the concept of in process stock a lot of this frustration can be avoided.
In the manufacturing world, in process stock refers to a small quantity of product (usually one) that allows an operator to do other tasks while a machine is running.
The majority of what is packed for a weekend trip is clothes and toiletries. If these items were already waiting at the other end of the trip, the preparation process at both ends would be cut significantly. Thus you are using a small stock of travel supplies to free yourself from the hassle of packing the same things for every trip.
Negotiating a little space in a spare closet or drawer can significantly reduce both the stress and the preparation time for a trip. Spare toiletries are cheap and the space taken up by the the only risks of keeping extra clothes at frequent travel locations are that you will always be wearing the same thing in family pictures, or that you will outgrow them between trips.
The association is a little bit of a stretch, but it works.
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