The Goal

198

ing, we could make those tables interchangeable. That way we could stack a load of parts in advance and switch loads with the use of a forklift. If it saves us a couple of hours a day, that means we can do an extra heat of parts over the course of a week."

I look from the furnaces back to Mike. I say, "Mike, I want you to take tomorrow night off. We'll get one of the other fore- men to cover for you."

"Sounds good to me," he says with a grin. "How come?" "Because the day after tomorrow, I want you on day turn. I'm going to have Bob Donovan put you together with an I.E. to write up these procedures formally, so we can start using them round the clock," I tell him. "You keep that mind of yours work- ing. We need it."

Later that morning, Donovan happens by my office.

"Hi, there," he says.

"Well, hello," I tell him. "Did you get my note on Haley?"

"It's being taken care of," says Bob.

"Good. And let's make sure he gets some more money out of this whenever the wage freeze is lifted," I say.

"Okay," says Bob as a smile spreads across his face. Then he leans against the doorway.

"Something else?" I ask.

"Got good news for you," says Bob.

"How good?"

"Remember when Jonah asked us if all the parts going through heat-treat really needed it?"

I tell him I remember.

"I just found out that in three cases, it wasn't engineering that specified heat-treat. It was us," says Bob.

"What do you mean?"

He explains that about five years ago some group of hot- shots were trying to improve the efficiencies of several of the machining centers. To speed up the processing, the cutting tool "bite" was increased. So on each pass, instead of shaving a chip that was a millimeter thick, the tool took off three millimeters. But increasing the amount of metal taken off on each pass made the metal brittle. And this necessitated heat-treating.

"The thing is, the machines we made more efficient happen to be non-bottlenecks," says Bob. "We have enough capacity on them to slow down and still meet demand. And if we go back to