The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
Excerpts
It just took him and his helper an hour and a half to set up for the other part that everyone needed so desperately. Now they want to forget about it and set up for something else instead? The hell with it! So Peach, always the diplomat, walks past my supervisor and my foreman, and tells the master machinist that if he doesn’t do what he’s told, he’s fired. More words are exchanged. The machinist threatens to walk off the job. The union steward shows up. Everybody is mad. Nobody is working. And now I’ve got four upset people greeting me bright and early in front of an idle plant.
— Page 11
Everything in this plant is late. Based on observation, I’d say this plant has four ranks of priority for orders: Hot . . . Very Hot . . . Red Hot . . . and Do It NOW! We just can’t keep ahead of anything.
— Page 11
“Dammit, I don’t have a minute!” he roars. “I don’t have time for excuses anymore. And I don’t need explanations. I need performance. I need shipments. I need income!”
— Page 14
“Julie, I do not have time to get into another fight with you,” I tell her. She’s starting to cry. “Fine! Go ahead and leave! I’ll just be here by myself,” she crys. “Like every night.” “Aw, Julie.” I finally go put my arms around her. We stand together for a few minutes, both of us quiet. When she stops crying, she steps back and looks up at me. “I’m sorry,” she says. “If you have to go back to the plant, then you’d better go.” “Why don’t we go out tomorrow night?” I suggest. She turns up her hands. “Fine . . . whatever.” I turn, then look back. “Will you be okay?” “Sure. I’ll find something to eat in the freezer,” she says.
— Page 20
You want to talk about efficiency? People hand-carrying things one at a time, back and forth . . . our output of parts per em- ployee must be ridiculous. It’s crazy
— Page 24
It’s the damn competition. That’s what’s killing us. Ever since the Japanese entered our markets, the competition has been incredible. Three years ago, they were beating us on quality and product design. We’ve just about matched them on those. But now they’re beating us on price and deliveries. I wish I knew their secret. What can I possibly do to be more competitive?
— Page 27
Something is wrong. I don’t know what it is, but something basic is very wrong. I must be missing something. I’m running what should be a good plant. Hell, it is a good plant. We’ve got the technology. We’ve got some of the best n/c machines money can buy. We’ve got robots. We’ve got a com- puter system that’s supposed to do everything but make coffee. We’ve got good people. For the most part we do. Okay, we’re short in a couple of areas, but the people we have are good for the most part, even though we sure could use more of them. And I don’t have too many problems with the union. They’re a pain in the ass sometimes, but the competition has unions too. And, hell, the workers made some concessions last time—not as many as we’d have liked, but we have a livable contract. I’ve got the machines. I’ve got the people. I’ve got all the materials I need. I know there’s a market out there, because the competitors’ stuff is selling. So what the hell is it?
— Page 27
I used to think if I worked hard I could do anything. Since the day I turned twelve I’ve worked. I worked after school in my old man’s grocery store. I worked through high school. When I was old enough, I spent my summers working in the mills around here. I was always told that if I worked hard enough it would pay off in the end. That’s true, isn’t it? Look at my brother; he took the easy way out by being the first born. Now he owns a grocery store in a bad neighborhood across town. But look at me. I worked hard. I sweated my way through engineering school. I got a job with a big company. I made myself a stranger to my wife and kids. I took all the crap that UniCo could give me and said, “I can’t get enough! Give me more!” Boy, am I glad I did! Here I am, thirty-eight years old, and I’m a crummy plant manager! Isn’t that wonderful? I’m really having fun now. Time to get the hell out of here. I’ve had enough fun for one day.
— Page 28
“Alex,” he says, “it was clear to me from your own words that you’re not running as efficient a plant as you think you are. You are running exactly the opposite. You are running a very in-efficient plant.” “Not according to the measurements,” I tell him. “Are you trying to tell me my people are wrong in what they’re reporting . . . that they’re lying to me or something?” “No,” he says. “It is very unlikely your people are lying to you. But your measurements definitely are.”
— Page 39
“Do you know what your problem is?” he asks me. “Sure,” I say. “I need better efficiencies.” “No, that is not your problem,” he says. “Your problem is you don’t know what the goal is. And, by the way, there is only one goal, no matter what the company.”
— Page 41
You cannot understand the meaning of productivity unless you know what the goal is. Until then, you’re just playing a lot of games with numbers and words.
— Page 42
But I guess the real reason is I just don’t want to be found yet. I need to think and I’ll never be able to do it if I go back to the office now.
— Page 45
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?
— Page 52
Maybe I should just dash off a blistering memo on the evil of reading newspapers on the job. Think that’ll put us back in the black?
— Page 53
But I sit there wondering. Lou actually is a bright guy. We’re all fairly bright; UniCo has lots of bright, well-educated people on the payroll. And I sit here listening to Lou pronounce his opinions, which all sound good as they roll off his tongue, and I wonder why it is that we’re slipping minute by minute toward oblivion, if we’re really so smart.
— Page 57
I check my watch—and I’m shocked. It’s past ten o’clock. All of a sudden, I realize I never called Julie to let her know I wasn’t going to be home for dinner. She’s really going to be pissed off at me; she always is when I don’t call. I pick up the phone and dial. Julie answers. “Hi,” I say. “Guess who had a rotten day.” “Oh? So what else is new?” she says. “It so happens my day wasn’t too hot either.” “Okay, then we both had rotten days,” I tell her. “Sorry I didn’t call before. I got wrapped up in something.” Long pause. “Well, I couldn’t get a babysitter anyway,” she says. Then it dawns on me; our postponed night out was sup- posed to be tonight. “I’m sorry, Julie. I really am. It just completely slipped my mind,” I tell her. “I made dinner,” she says. “When you hadn’t shown up after two hours, we ate without you. Yours is in the microwave if you want it.” “Thanks.” “Remember your daughter? The little girl who’s in love with you?” Julie asks. “You don’t have to be sarcastic.” “She waited by the front window for you all evening until I made her go to bed.” I shut my eyes. “Why?” I ask. “She’s got a surprise to show you,” says Julie. I say, “Listen, I’ll be home in about an hour.” “No rush,” says Julie. She hangs up before I can say good-bye.
— Page 59
A plant in which everyone is working all the time is very inefficient
— Page 93
It has to do with something called a covariance, the impact of one variable upon others in the same group. A mathematical principle says that in a linear dependency of two or more variables, the fluctuations of the variables down the line will fluctuate around the maximum deviation established by any preceding variables. That explains what happened in the balanced model.
— Page 122
“Don’t you see? It didn’t matter that Pete got his hundred pieces done, because we still couldn’t ship,” I say. “But Pete and his people thought they were heroes. Ordinarily, we might have thought the same thing. That isn’t right.”
— Page 144
“That’s a big part of the problem, Al. We train somebody and after a couple of years they can go elsewhere and make a few dollars more with somebody else,” says Bob. “And we can’t seem to attract anybody good with the wages we offer.”
— Page 154
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.
— Page 184
All my life I’ve gathered numbers and compiled reports. I’ve seen myself as somebody who has to supply the data, as an impartial, objective observer. But the last few months have shown me to what extent I was wrong. I wasn’t an objective observer; I was following, al- most blindly, some erroneous procedures without understanding the far-reaching, devastating ramifications.
— Page 282
(1) IDENTIFY the system’s constraint(s).
(2) Decide how to EXPLOIT the system’s constraint(s).
(3) SUBORDINATE everything else to the above decision.
(4) ELEVATE the system’s constraint(s).
(5) WARNING!!!! If in the previous steps a constraint has been broken,
go back to step 1, but do not allow INERTIA to cause a system’s constraint.