The Goal

162

"Do you realize what the rejection by Q.C. has done to you?" asks Jonah.

"It means we have to scrap about a hundred parts," says Bob.

"No, think again," says Jonah. "These are bottleneck parts."

It dawns on me what he's getting at.

"We lost the time on the bottleneck," I say.

Jonah whirls toward me.

"Exactly right!" he says. "And what does lost time on a bot- tleneck mean? It means you have lost throughput."

"But you're not saying we should ignore quality, are you?" asks Bob.

"Absolutely not. You can't make money for long without a quality product," says Jonah. "But I am suggesting you use qual- ity control in a different way."

I ask, "You mean we should put Q.C. in front of the bottle- necks?"

Jonah raises a finger and says, "Very perceptive of you. Make sure the bottleneck works only on good parts by weeding out the ones that are defective. If you scrap a part before it reaches the bottleneck, all you have lost is a scrapped part. But if you scrap the part after it's passed the bottleneck, you have lost time that cannot be recovered."

"Suppose we get sub-standard quality downstream from the bottleneck?" says Stacey.

"That's another aspect of the same idea," says Jonah. "Be sure the process controls on bottleneck parts are very good, so these parts don't become defective in later processing. Are you with me?"

Bob says, "Just one question: where do we get the inspec- tors?"

"What's wrong with shifting the ones you already have to the bottlenecks?" asks Jonah.

"That's something we can think about," I tell him.

"Good. Let's go back to the offices," says Jonah.

We go back to the office building and meet in the conference room.

"I want to be absolutely sure you understand the importance of the bottlenecks," says Jonah. "Every time a bottleneck finishes a part, you are making it possible to ship a finished product. And how much does that mean to you in sales?"