Alex?"
I tell her, "Mom, I'm an adult now. It's my option whether
or not to eat my peas."
She looks hurt.
I say, "Sorry. I'm a little depressed tonight."
"What's wrong, Dad?" asks Davey.
"Well . . . it's kind of complicated," I say. "Let's just finish dinner. I've got to leave for the airport in a few minutes."
"Are you going away?" asks Sharon.
"No, I'm just going to pick up somebody," I say.
"Is it Mommy?" asks Sharon.
"No, not Mommy. I wish it could be."
"Alex, tell your children what's bothering you," says my
mother. "It affects them, too."
I look at the kids and realize my mother's right. I say, "We
found out we've got some problems at the plant which we might
not be able to solve."
"What about the man you called?" she asks. "Can't you talk
to him?"
"You mean Jonah? That's who I'm picking up at the air-
port," I say. "But I'm not sure even Jonah's help will do any
good."
Hearing this, Dave is shocked. He says, "You mean ... all
that stuff we learned about on the hike, about Herbie setting the
speed for the whole troop and all that—none of that was true?"
"Of course it's still true, Dave," I tell him. "The problem is, we discovered we've got two Herbies at the plant, and they're
right where we don't want them. It would be as if we couldn't
rearrange the boys on the trail and Herbie had a twin brother—
and now they're both stuck in the middle of the line. They're
holding everything up. We can't move them. We've got piles and
piles of inventory stacked up in front of them. I don't know what
we can do."
Mom says, "Well, if they can't do the work, you'll just have to
let them go."
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"It's not people; it's equipment," I explain . "We can't fire machines. And, anyway, what they do is essential. We couldn't
produce most of our products without these two operations."
"So why don't you make them go faster?" asks Sharon.
"Sure, Dad," says Davey. "Remember what happened on the
hike when you took Herbie's pack from him? Maybe you could
do something kind of like that in the plant."
"Yeah, but it's not quite that simple," I say.
Mom says, "Alex, I know you'll do the best you can. If you've
got these two slow pokes holding everything up, you'll just have
to keep after them and make sure they don't waste any more
time."
I say, "Yeah, well, I've got to run. Don't wait up for me. I'll
see you in the morning."
Waiting at the gate, I watch Jonah's plane taxi up to the
terminal. I talked to him in Boston this afternoon just before he
was leaving for Los Angeles. I told him I wanted to thank him for
his advice, but that the situation at the plant was impossible so far
as we could see.
"Alex, how do you know it's impossible?" he asked.
I told him, "We've only got two months left before my boss
goes to the board of directors with his recommendation. If we
had more time, maybe we could do something, but with only two
months. . . ."
"Two months is still enough time to show an improvement,"
he said. "But you have to learn how to run your plant by its
constraints."
"Jonah, we've analyzed the situation thoroughly—'
He said, "Alex, there are two ways that the ideas I'm giving
you won't work. One is if there isn't any demand for the products
your plant makes."
"No, we have a demand, although it's shrinking as our prices
go up and service deteriorates," I said. "But we still have a size-able backlog of orders."
"I also can't help you if you're determined not to change.
Have you made up your mind to do nothing and let the plant
close?"
"It's not that we want to give up," I told him. "It's that we don't see any other possibilities."
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"Okay then. Have you tried to take some of the load off the
bottlenecks by using other resources?" he asked.
"You mean offloading? We can't. These are the only two re-
sources of their type in the plant."
He paused for a moment and finally he said, "All right, one
more question: Does Bearington have an airport?"
And so here he is tonight, walking out of Gate Two. He
changed his flight to Los Angeles to make a stop here for the
evening. I walk up to him and shake his hand.
"How was your flight?" I ask him.
"Have you ever spent time in a sardine can?" he says, then
adds, "I shouldn't complain. I'm still breathing."
"Well, thanks for coming," I tell him. "I appreciate you
changing your plans, although I'm still not sure you can help us."
"Alex, having a bottleneck—"
"Two bottlenecks," I remind him.
"Having tw o bottlenecks doesn't mean you can't make
money," he says. "Quite the contrary, in fact. Most manufactur-
ing plants do not have bottlenecks. They have enormous excess
capacity. But they should have them—one on every part they
make."
He reads the puzzled look on my face.
"You don't understand, but you will," he said. "Now I want
you to give me as much background on your plant as you can."
All the way from the airport, I talk non-stop about our pre-
dicament. When we reach the plant, I park the Mazda in front of
the offices. Waiting for us inside are Bob, Lou, Stacey and Ralph.
They're standing around the vacant receptionist's desk. Everyone
is cordial, but as I make the introductions I can tell the staff is
waiting to see if this Jonah guy—who bears no resemblance to
any consultant they've ever seen walk through the door—really
knows what he's doing. Jonah stands in front of them and begins
to pace as he talks.
"Alex called me today because you perceive a problem with
the bottlenecks you've discovered in your plant," says Jonah. "Actually, you are experiencing a combination of several problems.
But first things first. From what Alex has told me, your most
immediate need is to increase throughput and improve your cash
flow. Am I right?"
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"That sure would be a big help," says Lou. "How do you
think we might be able to do that?"
"Your bottlenecks are not maintaining a flow sufficient to
meet demand and make money," he says. "So there is only one
thing to do. We have to find more capacity."
"But we don't have the money for more capacity," says Lou.
"Or the time to install it," says Bob.
"I'm not talking about more capacity from one end of the
plant to the other," says Jonah. "To increase the capacity of the plant is to increase the capacity of only the bottlenecks."
"You mean make them into non-bottlenecks," says Stacey.
"No," he says. "Absolutely not. T
he bottlenecks stay bottlenecks. What we must do is find enough capacity for the bottle-
necks to become more equal to demand."
"Where're we going to find it?" asks Bob. "You mean it's just layin' around out there?"
"In effect, yes," says Jonah. "If you are like most manufacturers, you will have capacity that is hidden from you because
some of your thinking is incorrect. And I suggest that first of all
we go into your plant and see for ourselves exactly how you are
managing your two bottlenecks."
"Why not," I say. "After all, no one visits this plant and es-capes without a tour."
The six of us put on the safety glasses and hats and go into
the plant. Jonah and I head the column as we walk through the
double doors into the orange light. It's about halfway into second
shift now and somewhat quieter than it is on day turn. That's
good because it lets us hear each other better when we talk. I
point out various stages of production to Jonah as we walk. I
notice Jonah's eyes measuring the stacks of inventory piled every-
where. I try to hurry us along.
"This is our NCX-10 n/c machine," I tell Jonah as we arrive
at the big machine.
"And this is your bottleneck, correct?" asks Jonah.
"One of them," I say.
"Can you tell me why isn't it working right now?" asks Jo-
nah.
Indeed, the NCX-10 is stopped at the moment.
I say, "Well . . . ah, good question. Bob, why isn't the
NCX-10 running?"
Bob glances at his watch.
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"Probably because the set-up people went on break about ten
minutes ago," says Bob. "They should be back in about twenty
minutes."
"There is a clause in our union contract which stipulates
there must be a half-hour break after every four hours of work,"
I explain to Jonah.
He asks, "But why should they take their break now instead
of when the machine is running?"
Bob says, "Because it was eight o'clock and—"
Jonah holds up his hands and says, "Wait a minute. On any
non-bottleneck machine in your plant, no problem. Because, after
all, some percentage of a non-bottleneck's time should be idle. So who cares when those people take their breaks? It's no big deal.
But on a bottleneck? It's exactly the opposite."
He points to the NCX-10 and says, "You have on this ma-
chine only so many hours available for production—what is it
. . . 600, 700 hours?"
"It's around 585 hours a month," says Ralph.
"Whatever is available, the demand is even greater," says
Jonah. "If you lose one of those hours, or even half of it, you have
lost it forever. You cannot recover it someplace else in the system.
Your throughput for the entire plant will be lower by whatever
amount the bottleneck produces in that time. And that makes an
enormously expensive lunch break."
"But we have a union to deal with," says Bob.
Jonah says, "So talk to them. They have a stake in this plant.
They're not stupid. But you have to make them understand."
Yeah, I'm thinking; that's easier said than done. On the
other hand . . .
Jonah is walking around the NCX-10 now, but he's not just
looking at it alone. He's looking at other equipment in the plant.
He comes back to us.
"You've told me this is the only machine of its type in the
plant," says Jonah, "But this is a relatively new machine. Where are the older machines that this one replaced? Do you still have
those?"
Bob says vaguely, "Well, some of them we do. Some of them
we got rid of. They were practically antiques."
"Do you have at least one of each type of the older machines
necessary to do what this X-what-ever-it-is machine does?" Jonah
asks.
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Lou edges in and and says, "Excuse me, but you're not actu-
ally suggesting we use that old equipment, are you?"
"If it's still operational, then yes, I might suggest it," says
Jonah.
Lou's eyes blink.
He says, "Well, I'm not sure what that would do to our cost
profile. But I have to tell you that those old machines are going to
be much more expensive to operate."
Jonah says, "We'll deal with that directly. First, I just want to
know if you have the machines or not."
For the answer, we turn to Bob—who chuckles.
"Sorry to disappoint you all," he says, "but we got rid of an entire class of machine that we'd need to supplement the
NCX-10."
"Why did we go do a dumb thing like that?" I ask.
Bob says, "We needed the floor space for that new pen to
hold inventory."
I say, "Oh."
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," says Stacey.
Moving right along to heat-treat, we gather in front of the
furnaces.
The first thing Jonah does is look at the stacks of parts and
ask, "Are you sure all this inventory requires heat-treat?"
"Oh, absolutely," says Bob.
"There are no alternatives in the processing ahead of this
department that would prevent the need for heat-treat on at least
some of these parts?" he asks.
We all look at each other.
"I guess we'd have to consult with engineering," I say. Bob
rolls his eyes.
"What's the matter?" I ask.
"Let's just say our friends in engineering aren't as responsive
as they could be," says Bob. "They're not too happy about chang-
ing requirements. Their attitude is usually, 'Do it this way be-
cause we said so.''
To Jonah, I say, "I'm afraid he does have a point. Even if we
can get them to cooperate, it might take a month of Sundays for
them to approve it."
Jonah says, "Okay, let me ask you this: are there vendors in
the area who can heat-treat parts for you?"
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"There are," says Stacey, "but going outside would increase our cost-per-part."
The expression on Jonah's face says he's getting a little bored
with this stonewalling. He points at the mountains of parts.
"How much money is represented in that pile?" he asks.
Lou says, "I don't know . . . maybe ten or fifteen thousand
dollars in parts."
"No, it isn't thousands of dollars, not if this is a bottleneck,"
says Jonah, "Think again. It's considerably more."
Stacey says, "I can go dig up the records if you like, but the
cost won't be much more than what Lou said. At the most, I'd
guess we've got about twenty thousands dollars in material—"
"No, no," says Jonah. "I'm not just talking about the cost of materials. How many products are you going to sell to customers
as soon as you can process this entire pile?"
The staff and I talk among ourselves for a moment.
"It's kind of hard to say," says Bob.
"We're not sure all the parts in t
hat pile would translate into
immediate sales," says Stacey.
"Oh really? You are making your bottlenecks work on parts
that will not contribute to throughput?" asks Jonah.
"Well . . . some of them become spare parts or they go into
finished goods inventory. Eventually it becomes throughput,"
says Lou.
"Eventually," says Jonah. "And, meanwhile, how big did you say your backlog of overdue orders is?"
I explain to him that sometimes we inflate the batch quanti-
ties to improve efficiency.
"Tell me again how this improves your efficiency," says Jo-
nah.
I feel myself starting to turn red with the memory of earlier
conversations.
"Okay, never mind that for now," says Jonah. "Let's concern ourselves strictly with throughput. I'll put my question differently: how many products are you unable to ship because you are
missing the parts in that pile?"
That's easier to determine because we know what our back-
log is. I tell him how many millions we've got in backlog and
about what percent of that is held up on account of bottleneck
parts.
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"And if you could finish the parts in that pile, you could
assemble and ship the product?" he asks.
"Sure, no problem," says Bob.
"And what is the selling price of each unit?"
"About a thousand dollars a unit on the average," says Lou,
"although it varies, of course."
"Then we are not dealing with ten or fifteen or even twenty
thousand dollars here," says Jonah. "Because we are dealing with how many parts in that pile?"
"Perhaps, a thousand," says Stacey.
"And each part means you can ship a product?"
"Generally, yes," she says.
"And each product shipped means a thousand dollars," says
Jonah. "A thousand units times a thousand dollars is how much
money?"
In unison, our faces turn toward the mountain.
"One million dollars," I say with awe.
"On one condition!" says Jonah. "That you get these parts in and out of heat-treat and shipped as a finished product before
your customers get tired of waiting and go elsewhere!"
He looks at us, his eyes shifting from face to face.
"Can you afford to rule out any possibility," he asks, "especially one that is as easy to invoke as a change in policy?"
Everyone is quiet.
"By the way, I'll tell you more about how to look at the costs
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