The Goal

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screwing up relations with a dozen customers just to please one. "Let's try something else."

"Like what?" asks Bob, who is sitting there with us, looking about as enthusiastic as a bump on a log.

I say, "A few weeks ago, we cut our batch sizes by half, and the result was we could condense the time inventory spends in the plant, which also gave us an increase in throughput. What if we cut the batch sizes by half again?"

Ralph says, "Gee, I hadn't thought of that."

Bob leans forward. "Cut them again? Sorry, Al, but I don't see how the heck that can help us, not with the volume we're already committed to."

"You know," says Ralph, "we have quite a few orders we'd planned to ship ahead of their due dates. We could re-schedule some of those in the priority system so they'd ship when prom- ised instead of early. That could give us more time available on the bottlenecks, and it wouldn't hurt anybody."

"Good point, Ralph," I tell him.

"But, hell, we still can't get a thousand units done no-how," drawls Bob. "Not in two weeks."

I say, "Well, then, if we cut the batch sizes, how many units can we do in two weeks and still ship our current orders on time."

Bob pulls on his chin and says, "I guess we could look into it."

"I'll see what I can find out," says Ralph, standing so he can leave and go back to his computer.

His interest finally piqued, Bob says, "Maybe I'd better go with you so we can noodle this thing out together."

While Ralph and Bob are wrestling with this new possibility, Stacey enters with news about inventories. She's ascertained we can obtain all the materials we need either from our own stocks or from vendors within a few days, with one exception.

"The electronic control modules for the Model 12 are a problem," says Stacey. "We don't have enough of this type in stock. And we don't have the technology to build them in-house. But we've located a vendor in California who has them. Unfortu- nately, the vendor can't promise a shipment of that quantity in less than four to six weeks, including shipping. I'd say we might as well forget it."

"Wait a minute, Stacey; we're thinking about a little change in strategy. How many modules could they give us per week?" I