The Goal

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"Until you came along," I say. "But you can't be everywhere, and this same kind of thing is going to happen again. So how do we communicate to everybody in the plant which parts are im- portant?"

"I guess we need some kind of system," says Bob.

"Fine. Let's go work on one right away so we don't have to keep putting up with this crap," I say. "And before we do any- thing else, let's make sure that people at both of the bottlenecks know to keep working on the order with the highest priority number on the list."

Bob has a final chat with Otto to make sure he knows what to do with the parts. Then the two of us head for the bottlenecks.

Finally we're walking back to the office. Glancing at Bob's face, I can tell he's still bothered by what happened.

"What's wrong? You look unconvinced about all this," I say.

"Al, what's going to happen if we repeatedly have people break up process runs to run parts for the bottlenecks?" he asks.

"We should be able to avoid idle time on the bottlenecks," I say.

"But what's going to happen to our costs on the other 98 percent of the work centers we got here?" he asks.

"Right now, don't worry about it. Let's just keep the bottle- necks busy," I say. "Look, I'm convinced you did the right thing back there. Aren't you?"

"Maybe I did the right thing," he says, "but I had to break all the rules to do it."

"Then the rules had to be broken," I say. "And maybe they weren't good rules to begin with. You know we've always had to break up process runs for expediency to get orders shipped. The difference between then and now is that now we know to do it ahead of time, before the external pressure comes. We've got to have faith in what we know."

Bob nods in agreement. But I know he'll only believe the proof. Maybe I'm the same, if I'm honest about it.

A few days pass while we develop a system to cure the prob- lem. But at eight o'clock on Friday morning, at the beginning of first shift, I'm in the cafeteria watching the employees wander in. With me is Bob Donovan.

After our earlier misunderstanding, I decided that the more people who know about the bottlenecks and how important they are, the better off we'll be. We're holding fifteen-minute meetings