The Goal: a process of Ongoing Improvement

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 promised 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. Unfortunately, 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 ask her. "And how soon
could they ship the first week’s quantity to us?’’
"I don’t know, but doing it that way, we might not be able to get a volume
discount,’’ says Stacey.
"Why not?’’ I ask. "We’d be committing to the same thousand units—it’s just
that we’d be staggering the shipments.’’
"Well, then there’s the added shipping cost,’’ she says.

---

"Stacey, we’re talking a million dollars in business here,’’ I tell her.
"Okay, but they’ll take at least three days to a week to get here by truck,’’ she
says.
"So why can’t we have them shipped air freight?’’ I ask. "They’re not very
big parts.’’
"Well....’’ says Stacey.
"Look into it, but I doubt if the air freight bill is going to eat up the profit on a
million-dollar sale,’’ I tell her. "And if we can’t get these parts, we can’t get
the sale.’’
"All right. I’ll see what they can do,’’ she says.
At the end of the day, the details are still being sweated out, but we know
enough for me to place a call to Jons.
"I’ve got a deal on those Model 12’s for you to relay to Burnside,’’ I say.
"Really?’’ says Jons excitedly. "You want to take the business?’’
"Under certain conditions,’’ I tell him. "First of all, there is no way we can
deliver the full thousand units in two weeks. But we can ship 250 per week to
them for four weeks.’’
"Well, okay, they might go for that,’’ says Jons, "but when can you start
shipping?’’
"Two weeks from the day they give us the order,’’ I say.
"Are you sure about this?’’ asks Johnny.
"The units will ship when we say they will,’’ I tell him.

---

"You’re that confident?’’
"Yes.’’
"Okay, okay. I’ll call them and see if they’re interested. But, Al, I just hope
what you’re telling me is real, because I don’t want to go through all the
hassles we had before with these people.’’ A couple of hours later, my phone
rings at home.
"Al? We got it! We got the order!’’ shouts Jons into my right ear.
And in my left ear, I hear a million bucks rung up on the cash register.
"You know what?’’ Jons is saying. "They even like the smaller shipments
better
than getting all thousand units at once!’’
I tell him, "Okay, great, I’ll get the ball rolling right away. You can tell them
that two weeks from today, we’ll ship the first 250.’’

---

30
At the beginning of the new month, we have a staff meeting. Everyone is
present except Lou. Bob tells me he’ll be in shortly. I sit down and fidget. To
get the meeting rolling while we’re waiting for Lou, I ask about shipments.
"How is Burnside’s order coming along?’’ I ask. "The first shipment went
out as scheduled,’’ says Donovan. "How about the rest of it?’’ I ask.
"No problems to speak of,’’ says Stacey. "The control boxes were a day late,
but there was time enough for us to assemble without delaying the shipment.
We got this week’s batch from the vendor on time.’’
I say, "Good. What’s the latest on the smaller batches?’’ "The flow
through the shop is even better now,’’ says Bob. "Excellent,’’ I say.
Just then Lou comes into the meeting. He’s late because he was finishing the
figures for this month. He sits down and looks straight at me.
"Well?’’ I ask. "Did we get our fifteen percent?’’
"No,’’ he says, "we got seventeen percent, thanks in part to Burnside. And
the coming month looks just fine.’’
Then he goes into a wrap-up of how we performed through the second
quarter. We’re now solidly in the black. Inventories are about forty percent of
what they were three months ago. Throughput has doubled.
"Well, we’ve come a long way, haven’t we?’’ I ask.
Sitting on my desk when I get back from lunch the next day are two crisp,
white envelopes with the UniWare Division logo in the upper left corner. I
open one and unfold the stiff stationery. The body of the letter is only two

---

short paragraphs, with Bill Peach’s signature on the bottom. It’s
congratulating us on the Burnside business. Tearing open the other, I find it
too is from Peach. It too is short and to the point. It formally directs me to
prepare for a performance review of the plant, which is to be held at
headquarters.
The smile I had from reading the first letter broadens. Three months ago,
that second letter would have dunked me into dread, because although it
doesn’t say so directly, I presume the review will be the occasion for
determining the future of the plant. I was expecting some kind of formal
evaluation. And now I am no longer dreading it—on the contrary, I welcome
it. What do we have to worry about? Hell, this is an opportunity to show what
we’ve done!
Throughput is going up as marketing spreads the word about us to other
customers. Inventories are a fraction of what they were and still falling. With
more business and more parts over which to spread the costs, operating
expense is down. We’re making money.
The following week, I’m away from the plant for two days with my
personnel manager, Scott Dolin. We’re at an off-site, very confidential
meeting in St. Louis with the division’s labor relations group and the other
plant managers. Most of the discussion is about winning wage concessions
from the various unions. It’s a frustrating session for me—at Bearington, we
don’t particularly need to lower wages. So I’m less than enthusiastic about
much of the strategy suggested, knowing it could lead to problems with the
union, which could lead to a strike, which could kill the progress we’ve been
making with customers. Aside from all that, the meeting is poorly run and
ends with very little decided. I return to Bearington.
About four in the afternoon, I walk through the doors of the office
building. The receptionist flags me down as I pass. She tells me Bob
Donovan has asked to see me the moment I arrive. I have Bob paged and he
comes hurrying into my office a few minutes later.
"What’s up, Bob?’’ I ask.

---

"Hilton Symth,’’ he says. "He was here in the plant today.’’ "He was 
here?’’
I ask. "Why?’’
Bob shakes his head and says, "Remember the videotape about robots that
was in the works a couple of months ago?’’ "That was killed,’’ I say.
"Well, it was reincarnated,’’ says Bob. "Only now it’s Hilton, because he’s
productivity manager for the division, doing the speech instead of Granby. I
was having a cup of coffee out of the machine over by C-aisle this morning
when I see this T.V. crew come trooping along. By the time I found out what
they were doing here, Hilton Smyth is standing at my elbow.’’
"Didn’t anybody here know they were coming?’’ I ask.
He tells me Barbara Penn, our employee communicator, knew about it.
"And she didn’t think to