The Goal

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good month. Inventory levels have fallen and are continuing to fall rapidly. Withholding some materials has meant we're no longer choking on work-in-process. Parts are reaching the bottle- necks when they're supposed to, and the flow through the plant is much smoother than before.

And what happened to efficiencies? Well, they did fall ini- tially as we began to withhold raw material from the floor, but not as much as we had been afraid they would-it turns out we were consuming excess inventory. But with the rate of shipments up dramatically, that excess has melted quickly. And now that we're beginning to resume releases of materials to non-bottlenecks again, efficiencies are on their way back up. Donovan has even told me confidentially he thinks the real numbers in the future will be almost the same as before.

The best news is we've wiped out our backlog of overdue orders. Amazing as it seems, we're completely caught up. So cus- tomer service has improved. Throughput is up. We're on our way back. It's too bad the standard report we've prepared can't begin to tell the full story of what's really going on.

When I've finished, I look up the table and see Hilton Smyth whispering something to Bill Peach. There is quiet around the table for a moment. Then Bill nods to Hilton and talks to me.

"Good job, Al," Bill says stiffly.

Through with me, Bill asks another manager to deliver his report. I sit back, irritated slightly that Peach wasn't more posi- tive, that he didn't put more praise on me the way Frost had indicated he should. I came in here feeling as though we'd really turned the plant around. And I guess I expected a little more than a "good job," a pat on the head.

But then I have to remind myself that Peach doesn't know the extent of the change. Should he know? Should we be telling him? Lou has asked me about this. And I've told him, no; let's hold off for a while.

We could go to Bill Peach and make a presentation to him, put all our cards on the table and let him decide. In fact, that's exactly what we will do eventually. But not yet. And I think I have a good reason.

I've worked with Bill Peach for a lot of years; I know him pretty well. He's a smart man-but he is not an innovator. A couple of years ago, he might have let us run with this for a while. Not today. I have a feeling if we go to him now, he'll put on his