The Goal

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"Okay, but some of what Jonah talked about will be easier and faster to make happen than the rest," he says. "Why don't we go ahead with the easier things right away and see what kind of effect they have while we're developing the others."

I tell him, "That sounds reasonable. What would you do first?"

"I think I'd wanna move the Q.C. inspection points first, to check parts going into the bottlenecks," says Bob. "The other Q.C. measures will take a little time, but we can have an inspector checking pre-bottleneck parts in no time-by the end of today if you want."

I nod. "Good. What about new rules for lunch breaks?"

"We might have a squawk or two from the union," he says.

I shake my head. "I think they'll go along with it. Work out the details and I'll talk to O'Donnell."

Bob makes a note on the paper pad on his lap. I stand up and step around the desk to emphasize what I'm about to say.

"One of the questions Jonah raised last night really struck home for me," I tell them. "Why are we making the bottlenecks work on inventory that won't increase throughput?"

Bob looks at Stacey, and she looks back at him.

"That's a good question," she says.

Bob says, "We made the decision-"

"I know the decision," I say. "Build inventory to maintain efficiencies." But our problem is not efficiencies. Our problem is our backlog of overdue orders. And it's very visible to our cus- tomers and to division management. We positively must do some- thing to improve our due-date performance, and Jonah has given us the insight on what that something has to be.

"Until now, we've expedited orders on the basis of who's screamed the loudest," I say. "From now on, late orders should get first priority over the others. An order that's two weeks late gets priority over an order that's one week late, and so on."

"We've tried that from time to time in the past," says Stacey.

"Yes, but the key this time is we make sure the bottlenecks are processing parts for those late orders according to the same pri- ority," I say.

"That's the sane approach to the problem, Al," says Bob, "Now how do we make it happen?"

"We have to find out which inventory en route to the bottle- necks is needed for late orders and which is simply going to end