The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, page 23
Finally I say, "Yes, that is what I said. But didn’t it occur to you that if you couldn’t do one item on the list you should go on to the next?’’
Mario looks helpless.
"Well, where the hell are the materials you need?’’ I ask him.
"I have no idea,’’ he says. "They could be any of half-a-dozen places. But I think Bob Donovan might have somebody looking for them already.’’
"Okay, look,’’ I tell him. "You have the setup people get this machine ready for whatever is the next part on that list for which you do have the materials. And keep this hunk of junk running.’’
"Yes sir,’’ says Mario.
Fuming mad, I start back to the office to have Donovan paged, so I can find out what went wrong. Halfway there, I pass some lathes and there he is, talking to Otto the foreman. I don’t know how civil the tone is. Otto appears to be dismayed by Bob’s presence. I stop and stand there waiting for Bob to finish and notice me. Which happens directly. Otto walks over and calls his machinists together. Bob comes over to me.
I say, "You know about what’s going on—’’
"Yes, I know,’’ he says. "That’s why I’m here.’’
"What’s the problem?’’
"Nothing, no problem,’’ he says. "Just standard operating procedure.’’
It turns out, as Bob explains to me, that the parts they were waiting for at the NCX-10 have been sitting there for about a week. Otto has been running other batches of parts. He didn’t know about the importance of the parts destined for the NCX-10. To him they looked like any other batch—and a rather unimportant one judging from the size. When Bob got here, they were in the middle of a big, long run. Otto didn’t want to stop . . . until Donovan explained it to him, that is.
"Dammit, Al, it’s just like before,’’ Bob says. "They get set up and they start running one thing, and then they have to break in the middle so we can finish something else. It’s the same damn thing!’’
"Now hold on,’’ I say. "Let’s think about this for a second.’’
Bob shakes his head. "What is there to think about?’’
"Let’s just try to reason this through,’’ I say. "What was the problem?’’
"The parts didn’t arrive at the NCX-10, which meant the operators couldn’t run the batch they were supposed to be running,’’ says Bob in kind of a sing-song way.
"And the cause was that the bottleneck parts were held up by this non-bottleneck machine running non-bottleneck parts,’’ I say. "Now we’ve got to ask ourselves why that happened.’’
"The guy in charge here was just trying to stay busy, that’s all,’’ says Bob.
"Right. Because if he didn’t stay busy, someone like you would come along and jump all over him,’’ I say.
"Yeah, and if I didn’t, then someone like you would jump all over me,’’ says Bob.
"Okay, granted. But even though this guy was busy, he wasn’t helping to move toward the goal,’’ I say.
"Well...’’
"He wasn’t, Bob! Look,’’ I say. I point to the parts destined for the NCX-10. "We need those parts now, not tomorrow. The non-bottleneck parts we may not need for weeks, or even months —maybe never. So by continuing to run the non-bottleneck parts, this guy was actually interfering with our ability to get an order out the door and make money.’’
"But he didn’t know any better,’’ says Bob.
"Exactly. He couldn’t distinguish between an important batch of parts and an unimportant one,’’ I say. "Why not?’’
"Nobody told him.’’
"Until you came along,’’ I say. "But you can’t be everywhere, and this same kind of thing is going to happen again. So how do we communicate to everybody in the plant which parts are important?’’
"I guess we need some kind of system,’’ says Bob.
"Fine. Let’s go work on one right away so we don’t have to keep putting up with this crap,’’ I say. "And before we do anything else, let’s make sure that people at both of the bottlenecks know to keep working on the order with the highest priority number on the list.’’
Bob has a final chat with Otto to make sure he knows what to do with the parts. Then the two of us head for the bottlenecks.
Finally we’re walking back to the office. Glancing at Bob’s face, I can tell he’s still bothered by what happened.
"What’s wrong? You look unconvinced about all this,’’ I say.
"Al, what’s going to happen if we repeatedly have people break up process runs to run parts for the bottlenecks?’’ he asks.
"We should be able to avoid idle time on the bottlenecks,’’ I say.
"But what’s going to happen to our costs on the other 98 percent of the work centers we got here?’’ he asks.
"Right now, don’t worry about it. Let’s just keep the bottlenecks busy,’’ I say. "Look, I’m convinced you did the right thing back there. Aren’t you?’’
"Maybe I did the right thing,’’ he says, "but I had to break all the rules to do it.’’
"Then the rules had to be broken,’’ I say. "And maybe they weren’t good rules to begin with. You know we’ve always had to break up process runs for expediency to get orders shipped. The difference between then and now is that now we know to do it ahead of time, before the external pressure comes. We’ve got to have faith in what we know.’’
Bob nods in agreement. But I know he’ll only believe the proof. Maybe I’m the same, if I’m honest about it.
A few days pass while we develop a system to cure the problem. But at eight o’clock on Friday morning, at the beginning of first shift, I’m in the cafeteria watching the employees wander in. With me is Bob Donovan.
After our earlier misunderstanding, I decided that the more people who know about the bottlenecks and how important they are, the better off we’ll be. We’re holding fifteen-minute meetings with everyone working in the plant, both foremen and hourly people. This afternoon, we’ll do the same thing with people working second shift, and I’ll come in late tonight to talk to the third shift as well. When we’ve got everybody this morning, I get up in front of them and talk.
"All of you know that this plant has been in a downward slide for some time. What you don’t know is that we’re in the position to begin to change that,’’ I tell them. "You’re here in this meeting because we’re introducing a new system today ...a system which we think will make the plant more productive than it’s been in the past. In the next few minutes, I’m going to explain briefly some of the background that made us develop this new system. And then Bob Donovan is going to tell you how it works.’’
Trying to keep meetings to fifteen minutes doesn’t give us the time to tell them very much. But using the analogy of an hourglass, I do explain briefly about the bottlenecks and why we have to give priority to parts on the heat-treat and NCX-10 routings. For the things I can’t take time to tell them, there is going to be a newsletter, which will replace the old plant employee paper, and which will report developments and progress in the plant.
Anyway, I turn over the microphone to Donovan and he tells them how we’re going to prioritize all materials in the plant so everybody knows what to work on.
"By the end of today, all work-in-process on the floor will be marked by a tag with a number on it,’’ he says and holds up some samples. "The tag will be one of two colors: red or green.
"A red marker means the work attached to it has first priority. The red tags go on any materials needing to be processed by a bottleneck. When a batch of parts with that color marker arrives at your work station, you are to work on them right away.’’
Bob explains what we mean by "right away.’’ If the employee is working on a different job, it’s okay to finish what he’s doing, as long as it doesn’t take more than half an hour. Before an hour has passed, certainly, the red-tagged parts should be getting attention.
"If you are in the middle of a setup, break the setup immediately and get ready for the red parts. When you’ve finished the bottleneck parts, you can go back to what you were doing before.
"The second color is green. When there is a choice between working on parts with a red marker and parts with a green marker, you work on the parts with the red marker first. So far, most of the work-in-process out there will be marked by green. Even so, you work on green orders only if you don’t have any red ones in queue.
"That explains the priority of the colors. But what happens when you’ve got two batches of the same color? Each tag will have a number marked on it. You should always work on the materials with the lowest number.’’
Donovan explains some of the details and answers a couple of questions, after which I wrap it up.
I tell them, "This meeting was my idea. I decided to take you away from your jobs, mostly because I wanted everyone to hear the same message at the same time, so that—I hope—you’ll have a better understanding of what’s going on. But another reason is that I know it’s been a long time since most of you have heard any good news about the plant. What you’ve just heard about is a beginning. Even so, the future of this plant and the security of your jobs will only be assured when we start making money again. The most important thing you can do is to work with us . . . and, together, we’ll all be working to keep this plant working.’’
Late that afternoon, my phone rings.
"Hi, this is O’Donnell. Go ahead with the new policy on lunch and coffee breaks. We won’t challenge it.’’
I relay the news to Donovan. And with these small victories, the week ends.
At 7:29 on Saturday evening, I park the washed, waxed, buffed and vacuumed Mazda in the Barnett driveway. I reach for the bouquet of flowers beside me on the seat, and step out onto the lawn wearing my new courting duds. At 7:30, I ring the doorbell.
Julie opens the door.
"Well, don’t you look nice,’’ she says.
"So do you,’’ I tell her.
And she does.
There are a few stiff minutes spent talking with her parents. Mr. Barnett asks how everything is going at the plant. I tell him it looks like we may be on our way to a recovery, and mention the new priority system and what it will do for the NCX-10 and heattreat. Both of her parents look at me blankly.
"Shall we go?’’ suggests Julie.
Joking, I tell Julie’s mother, "I’ll have her home by ten o’clock.’’
"Good,’’ says Mrs. Barnett. "We’ll be waiting.’’
22
"There you have it,’’ says Ralph.
"Not bad,’’ says Stacey.
"Not bad? It’s a lot better than not bad,’’ says Bob. "We must be doing something right,’’ says Stacey. "Yeah, but it isn’t enough,’’ I mutter.
A week has passed. We’re grouped around a computer terminal in the conference room. Ralph has extracted from the computer a list of overdue orders that we shipped last week.
"Isn’t enough? At least it’s progress,’’ says Stacey. "We shipped twelve orders last week. For this plant, that’s not bad. And they were our twelve most overdue orders.’’
"By the way, our worst overdue order is now only forty four days late,’’ says Ralph. "As you may recall, the worst one used to be fifty eight days.’’
"All right!’’ says Donovan.
I step back to the table and sit down.
Their enthusiasm is somewhat justified. The new system of tagging all the batches according to priority and routing has been working fairly well. The bottlenecks are getting their parts promptly. In fact, the piles of inventory in front of them have grown. Following bottleneck processing, the red-tagged parts have been getting to final assembly faster. It’s as if we’ve created an "express lane’’ through the plant for bottleneck parts.
After putting Q.C. in front of the bottlenecks, we discovered that about five percent of the parts going into the NCX-10 and about seven percent going into heat-treat did not conform to quality requirements. If those percentages hold true in the future, we’ll effectively have gained that time for additional throughput.
The new policy of having people cover the bottlenecks on lunch breaks has also gone into effect. We’re not sure how much we’ve gained from that, because we didn’t know how much we were losing before. At least we’re doing the right thing now. But I have heard reports that from time to time the NCX-10 is idle— and it happens when there is nobody on break. Donovan is supposed to be looking into the causes.
The combination of these has allowed us to ship our most critical orders and to ship a few more of them than normal. But I know we’re not going fast enough. A few weeks ago we were limping along; now we’re walking, but we ought to be jogging.
Glancing back toward the monitor, I see the eyes are upon me.
"Listen...I know we’ve taken a step in the right direction,’’ I explain. "But we have to accelerate the progress. It’s good that we got twelve shipments out last week. But we’re still having some customer orders become past due. It’s not as many, I’ll grant you, but we still have to do better. We really shouldn’t have any late orders.’’
Everyone walks away from thecomputerand joins me around the table. Bob Donovan starts telling me how they’re planning some refinements on what we’ve already done.
I say, "Bob, those are fine, but they’re minor. How are we coming on the other suggestions Jonah made?’’
Bob glances away.
"Well...we’re looking into them,’’ he says.
I say, "I want recommendations on offloading the bottlenecks ready for our Wednesday staff meeting.’’
Bob nods, but says nothing.
"You’ll have them for us?’’ I ask.
"Whatever it takes,’’ he says.
That afternoon in my office, I have a meeting with Elroy Langston, our Q.C. manager, and Barbara Penn, who handles employee communications. Barbara writes the newsletters, which are now explaining the background and reasons for the changes taking place in the plant. Last week, we distributed the first issue. I put her together with Langston to have her work on a new project.
After parts exit the bottlenecks, they often tend to look almost identical to the parts going into the bottlenecks. Only a close examination by a trained eye will detect the difference in some cases. The problem is how to make it easy for the employee to tell the two apart... and to make it possible for the employee to treat the post-bottleneck parts so more of them make it to assembly and are shipped as quality products. Langston and Penn are in my office to talk about what they’ve come up with.
"We already have the red tags,’’ says Penn. "So that tells us the part is on a bottleneck routing. What we need is a simple way to show people the parts they need to treat with special attention —the ones they need to treat like gold.’’
"That’s a suitable comparison,’’ I tell her.
She says, "So what if we simply mark the tags with pieces of yellow tape after the parts are finished by the bottlenecks. The tape would tell people on sight that these are the parts you treat like gold. In conjunction with this, I’ll do an internal promotion to spread the word about what the tape means. For media, we might use some sort of bulletin board poster, an announcement that the foremen would read to the hourly people, maybe a banner which would hang in the plant—those kinds of things.’’
"As long as the tape can be added without slowing down the bottlenecks, that sounds fine,’’ I say.
"I’m sure we can find a way to do it so it doesn’t interfere,’’ says Langston.
"Good,’’ I say. "One other concern of mine is that I don’t want this to be just a lot of promotion.’’
"That’s perfectly understood,’’ says Langston with a smile. "Right now, we’re systematically identifying the causes of quality problems on the bottlenecks and in subsequent processing. Once we know where to aim, we’ll be having specific procedures developed for bottleneck-routed parts and processes. And once they’re established, we’ll set up training sessions so people can learn those procedures. But that’s obviously going to take some time. For the short term, we’re specifying that the existing procedures be double-checked for accuracy on the bottleneck routes.’’
We talk that over for a few minutes, but basically all of it seems sound to me. I tell them to proceed full speed and to keep me informed of what’s happening.
"Nice job,’’ I say to both of them as they stand up to leave. "By the way, Roy, I thought Bob Donovan was going to sit in on this meeting.’’
"That man is hard to catch these days,’’ says Langston. "But I’ll brief him on what we talked about.’’
