The Goal

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hard nose and tell me to run the plant by the cost accounting methods he believes in.

I have to bide my time until I can go to him with a solid case that my way (Jonah's way, really) is the one that truly works. It's too early for that. We've broken too many rules to tell him the full story now.

But will we have the time? That's what I keep asking myself. Peach hasn't voluntarily lifted the threat to close the plant. I thought he might say something (publicly or privately) after this report, but he hasn't. I look at him at the end of the table. He seems distracted, not like himself. The others talk and he seems only half interested. Hilton seems to cue him on what to say. What's with him?

The meeting breaks up about an hour after lunch, and by then I've decided to have a private talk with Peach if I can get it. I follow him out into the corridor from the conference room and ask him. He invites me into his office.

"So when are you going to let us off the hook?" I ask him after the door is closed.

Bill sits down in a big upholstered chair and I take the one opposite him. Without the desk between us, it's a nice little inti- mate chat.

Bill looks straight at me and says, "What makes you think I'm going to?"

"Bearington is on its way back," I tell him. "We can make that plant make money for the division."

"Can you?" he asks. "Look, Al, you've had a good month. That's a step in the right direction. But can you give us a second good month? And a third and fourth? That's what I'm waiting to see."

"We'll give them to you," I say to him.

"I'm going to be frank," says Peach. "I'm not yet convinced this hasn't been just a flash in the pan, so to speak. You had a huge overdue backlog. It was inevitable you'd ship it eventually. What have you done to reduce costs? Nothing that I can see. It's going to take a ten or fifteen percent reduction in operating ex- pense to make the plant profitable for the long term."

I feel my heart sink. Finally, I say, "Bill, if next month we turn in another improvement, will you at least delay the recom- mendation to close the plant?"