The Goal

207

I can hear her relief.

"Yes, I would," she says. "When will I see you?" I suggest we try Friday all over again. She says she can't wait that long. We compromise on Wednesday.

Deja vu. At the airport next morning, I again greet Jonah as he walks out of Gate Two.

By ten o'clock, we're in the conference room at the plant. Sitting around the table are Lou, Bob, Ralph and Stacey. Jonah paces in front of us.

"Let's start with some basic questions," he says. "First of all, have you determined exactly which parts are giving you the problem?"

Stacey, who is sitting at the table with a veritable fortress of paper around her and looking as if she's ready for a siege, holds up a list.

She says, "Yes, we've identified them. In fact, I spent last night tracking them down and double checking the data with what's on the floor out there. Turns out the problem covers thirty parts."

Jonah asks, "Are you sure you released the materials for them?"

"Oh, yes," says Stacey. "No problem there. They've been released according to schedule. But they're not reaching final assembly. They're stuck in front of our new bottleneck."

"Wait a minute. How do you know it's really a bottleneck?" asks Jonah.

She says, "Well, since the parts are held up, I just figured it had to be..."

"Before we jump to conclusions, let's invest half an hour to go into the plant so we can find out what's happening," Jonah says.

So we parade into the plant, and a few minutes later we're standing in front of a group of milling machines. Off to one side are big stacks of inventory marked with green tags. Stacey stands there and points out the parts that are needed in final assembly. Most of the missing parts are right here and all bear green tags. Bob calls over the foreman, a hefty guy by the name of Jake, and introduces him to Jonah.

"Yeah, all them parts been sittin' here for about two, three weeks or more," says Jake.