The Goal

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Then it occurs to me: those three guys are doing something now, but is that going to help us make money? They might be working, but are they productive?

For a moment, I consider going back and telling the supervi- sor to make those guys actually produce. But, well... maybe there really isn't anything for them to work on right now. And even though I could perhaps have those guys shifted to some- place where they could produce, how would I know if that work is helping us make money?

That's a weird thought.

Can I assume that making people work and making money are the same thing? We've tended to do that in the past. The basic rule has been just keep everybody and everything out here work- ing all the time; keep pushing that product out the door. And when there isn't any work to do, make some. And when we can't make work, shift people around. And when you still can't make them work, lay them off.

I look around and most people are working. Idle people in here are the exception. Just about everybody is working nearly all the time. And we're not making money.

Some stairs zig-zag up one of the walls, access to one of the overhead cranes. I climb them until I am halfway to the roof and can look out over the plant from one of the landings.

Every moment, lots and lots of things are happening down there. Practically everything I'm seeing is a variable. The com- plexity in this plant-in any manufacturing plant-is mind-bog- gling if you contemplate it. Situations on the floor are always changing. How can I possibly control what goes on? How the hell am I supposed to know if any action in the plant is productive or non-productive toward making money?

The answer is supposed to be in my briefcase, which is heavy in my hand. It's filled with all those reports and printouts and stuff that Lou gave me for the meeting.

We do have lots of measurements that are supposed to tell us if we're productive. But what they really tell us are things like whether somebody down there "worked" for all the hours we paid him or her to work. They tell us whether the output per hour met our standard for the job. They tell us the "cost of prod- ucts," they tell us "direct labor variances," all that stuff. But how do I really know if what happens here is making money for us, or