The Goal

137

flashes. Coming the other way are two guys. Just as they pass the welding area, they stop and give a little cheer.

"We beat the robot! We beat the robot!" they say.

"Must be from Pete's department," says Bob.

We smile as we pass them. They didn't really beat anything, of course, but what the hell. They look happy. Bob and I con- tinue on to Pete's office, which is a little steel-sided shack among the machines.

"Hello there," says Pete as we walk in. "We got that rush job done for you today."

"Good, Pete. But do you have that log sheet you were sup- posed to keep," I ask him.

"Yes, I do," says Pete. "Now where did I put it?"

He sorts through the papers on his desk, talking as he hunts for it.

"You should have seen my people this afternoon. I mean, they really moved. I went around and told them how important this shipment is, and they really put themselves into it. You know how things usually slow down a little at the end of a shift. But today they hustled. They were proud when they walked out of here today."

"Yeah, we noticed," says Bob.

He puts the log sheet down on top of a table in front of us.

"There you are," he says.

We read it.

"Okay, so you only got nineteen pieces done in the first hour," I say .

"Well, it took us a little longer to get organized, and one guy was late coming back from lunch," says Pete. "But at one o'clock we had a materials handler take the nineteen over to the robot so it could get started."

"Then from one to two, you still missed the quota by four pieces," says Bob.

"Yeah, but so what?" says Pete. "Look what happened from two o'clock to three: we beat the quota by three pieces. Then when I saw we were still behind, I went around and told every- one how important it was for us to get those hundred pieces done by the end of the shift."

"So everyone went a little faster," I say.

"That's right," says Pete. "And we made up for the slow start."

"Yeah, thirty-two pieces in the last hour," says Bob. "So what do you say, Al?"

"Let's go see what's happening with the robot," I say.

At five minutes past five o'clock, the robot is still turning out welded sub-assemblies. Donovan is pacing. Fred walks up.

"Is that truck going to wait?" asks Bob.

"I asked the driver, and he says he can't. He's got other stops to make and if he waits for us, he'll be late all night," says Fred.

Bob turns to the machine. "Well, what the heck is wrong with this stupid robot? It's got all the parts it needs."

I tap him on the shoulder.

"Here," I say. "Look at this."

I show him the sheet of paper on which Fred has been re- cording the output of the robot. From my shirt pocket, I take out Pete's log and fold the bottom of it so we can put the two pieces of paper together.

Combined, the two of them look like this:

I tell him, "You see, the first hour Pete's people did nineteen pieces. The robot was capable of doing twenty-five, but Pete deliv- ered less than that, so nineteen became the robot's true capacity for that hour."

"Same with the second hour," says Fred. "Pete delivered twenty-one, the robot could only do twenty-one."