The Goal

193

"Two- and-a-half hours after they c ould have come out, they hadn't been unloaded?" I ask.

"That's right," says Ralph. "So I found Sammy, the second- shift foreman down there, and asked him what was going on. He told me he was short-handed that night, and they'd get to it later. He said it didn't hurt the parts to stay in the furnace. While I was there, he shut off the burners, but I found out later that the parts didn't come out until about eight o'clock. I didn't mean to start trouble, but I'd thought if we recorded the actual times per heat, we'd at least have some realistic figures to use for estimating. You see, I asked some of the hourly people down there and they told me those kinds of delays happen a lot in heat-treat."

"No kidding," I say. "Ralph... I want you to take all the measurements down there that you need. Don't worry about Ted. And do the same thing on the NCX-10."

"Well, I'd like to, but it's kind of a chore," he says. "That's why I wanted Ted and the others just to jot down the times and all."

I say, "Okay, we'll take care of that. And, ah... thanks very much."

"You're welcome," he says.

"By the way, what was the other reason?" I ask him. "You mentioned you had more than one."

"Oh, well, it's probably not that important."

"No, tell me," I say.

"I don't really know if we can do it or not," says Ralph, "but it occurred to me we might find a way to use the bottlenecks to predict when we'll be able to ship an order."

I contemplate that possibility.

"Sounds interesting," I tell him. "Let me know what you come up with."

Bob Donovan's ears are on fire by the time I've finished tell- ing him what Ralph discovered about heat-treat on his own. I'm very upset about this. He's sitting in a chair in my office while I walk in circles in front of him.

But when I'm done, Bob tells me, "Al, the trouble is there is nothing for the guys down there to do while heat-treat is cookin' the parts. You load up one of the damn furnaces, shut the doors, and that's it for six or eight hours, or however long it takes. What