The Goal

161

"And if you could finish the parts in that pile, you could assemble and ship the product?" he asks.

"Sure, no problem," says Bob.

"And what is the selling price of each unit?"

"About a thousand dollars a unit on the average," says Lou, "although it varies, of course."

"Then we are not dealing with ten or fifteen or even twenty thousand dollars here," says Jonah. "Because we are dealing with how many parts in that pile?"

"Perhaps, a thousand," says Stacey.

"And each part means you can ship a product?"

"Generally, yes," she says.

"And each product shipped means a thousand dollars," says Jonah. "A thousand units times a thousand dollars is how much money?"

In unison, our faces turn toward the mountain.

"One million dollars," I say with awe.

"On one condition!" says Jonah. "That you get these parts in and out of heat-treat and shipped as a finished product before your customers get tired of waiting and go elsewhere!"

He looks at us, his eyes shifting from face to face.

"Can you afford to rule out any possibility," he asks, "espe- cially one that is as easy to invoke as a change in policy?"

Everyone is quiet.

"By the way, I'll tell you more about how to look at the costs in a moment. But one more thing," says Jonah. "I want to know where you do quality inspection on bottleneck parts."

I explain to him that most inspection is done prior to final assembly.

"Show me," says Jonah.

So we go to an area where we do quality inspections. Jonah asks about bottleneck parts that we reject. Immediately, Bob points to a pallet stacked with shiny steel parts. On top of them is a pink sheet of paper, which indicates rejection by Quality Con- trol, or Q.C. as it's known. Bob picks up the job jacket and reads the forms inside.

"I'm not sure what's wrong with these, but they must be defective for some reason," says Bob.

Jonah asks, "Did these parts come through a bottleneck?"

"Yeah, they did," says Bob.