Surprises all around me. I thought I knew these people. I expected it would be impossible to convince Lou, and he almost begged me for the job. I didn't expect any problems with Bob, and he just declined my offer. It's really annoying.
"You'd better explain," I hand him his cup.
Bob's chair squeaks in protest as he fidgets. If I were staying here longer, I would have ordered a more massive chair just for him.
"Haven't you noticed how unique the events of Burnside's order were?" he says at last.
"Yes, of course. I've never heard of the president of a com- pany going to thank the workers of a vendor."
"Yeah, yeah, that too. But look at the whole chain of events. Johnny called you with an impossible client wish. He didn't be- lieve it could be done, and neither did the client. And on the surface, it was impossible. But we looked into it. We considered the bottleneck availability, we considered the vendor limitations, and we came back with something pretty unusual.
"We didn't say a flat no, or a flat yes, and then miss the due
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date by a mile, as we used to do. We re-engineered the deal; we came back with a counter-offer that was feasible and that the client liked even more than his original request."
"Yes," I say, "it was good work. Especially considering what came out after that. But that was a peculiar set of circumstances."
"It was peculiar because normally we don't take the initiative -but maybe there's a way to make it standard. Don't you see? We actually engineered a sale. We-in the plant, in production-en- gineered a sale."
I think about it. He's right. Now I start to see where he's heading.
Bob, probably misinterpreting my silence, says, "For you it's not a big deal, you always looked at production and sales as two links in the same chain. But look at me. All the time I'm buried out on the shop floor, thinking that my responsibility is to put out fires, and viewing the sales department as snake oil salesmen, spreading unrealistic promises to our clients. For me, this event was a revelation.
"Look, we give sales a rigid lead time for each product. So if it's not in finished goods, those are the numbers they should use to promise to clients. Yeah, they deviate from it, but not by much. Maybe there should be another way. Maybe the quoted lead times should be done case by case, according to the load on the bottle- necks. And maybe we shouldn't regard the quantities required as if we have to supply them in one shot.
"Alex, I'd like to look into it more. Actually, that's what Stacey, Ralph, and I are doing right now. We were looking for you, you should join us. It's pretty exciting."
It certainly sounds it, but I can't allow myself to get sucked in right now. I have to continue with preparations for my next job. "Tell me again what you are up to," I finally say.
"We want to make production a dominant force in getting good sales. Sales which will fit both the client's needs and the plant's capabilities like a glove. Exactly as we did in Burnside's case. But you see, for that I have to be here, in the plant. As long as we don't understand it in full, as long we don't develop the new procedures, we have to be intimately involved with all the details."
"So what you want to do is to find those procedures. I see. This is interesting-but Bob, that's not like you. Since when have you been interested in such things?"
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"Since you came and forced us to rethink the way we were doing stuff. Do you think somebody needs better proof than what's happened here in the past months? Here we were, run- ning things like we'd always done it-by the seat of our pants, slowly but surely sinking. And then we took the time and re- examined it from basic principles. And look at how many sacred cows we've had to slaughter! Worker efficiency-whoops, out the window. Optimum batch sizes-there it goes. Releasing work just because we have the material and the people-that's gone as well. And I can go on and on. But look at the result. If I hadn't seen it myself, I wouldn't believe it.
"Yeah, Alex, I want to stay here and continue what you've started. I want to be the new plant manager. You caused us to change almost every rule in production. You forced us to view production as a means to satisfy sales. I want to change the role production is playing in getting sales."
"Fine with me. But Bob, when you nail those procedures," and to myself I add, 'if/ "will you consider taking on responsibil- ity for all the plants in the division?"
"You bet, boss. I'll teach 'em a trick or two."
"Let's drink to it," I say. And we toast with our coffee.
"Who do you suggest should take your place?" I ask him. "Frankly, I'm not impressed with any of your superintendents."
"Unfortunately, I agree with you. The best would be Stacey, but I don't give it much chance she'd take it."
"Why don't we ask her. You know what? Let's call both Stacey and Ralph in and discuss your idea."
"So, at last you found him," Stacey says to Bob, as she and Ralph enter the room, each loaded with papers.
"Yes, Stacey," I answer. "And it definitely looks like a promis- ing idea. But before that, there's another thing that we'd like to discuss with you. We've just agreed that Bob will take my place as plant manager. How about you taking his place as production manager?"
"Congratulations, Bob." They both shake his hand. "That's no surprise."
Since Stacey hasn't answered my question, I continue, "Think about it, you don't have to answer now. We know that you love your job and that you don't want the burden of all the per-
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sonnel problems that go with being a production manager, but we both think that you'd do a fantastic job."
"You bet," Bob adds his two cents.
She looks calmly at me, and says, "Last night I was lying in bed, praying. I was praying that this job would be offered to me."
"Done," Bob shouts quickly.
"Now that you've accepted," I say to Stacey, "can you tell us why you want this job so badly?"
"Looks like being a material manager," Bob booms, "is start- ing to be boring around this plant-not enough expediting, not enough rush calls... I didn't know that you liked that type of excitement."
"No, I didn't, and I don't. That's why I was so happy with our new method, timing the release of material according to the bottlenecks' consumption. But you know my fear, what happens if new bottlenecks pop up?
"What my people and I have done is to examine daily the queues in front of the assembly and in front of the bottlenecks- we call them 'buffers.' We check just to be sure that everything that's scheduled to be worked on is there-that there are no 'holes.' We thought that if a new bottleneck pops up it would immediately show up as a hole in at least one of these buffers. It took us some time to perfect this technique, but now it's working smoothly.
"You see, whenever there's a hole in a buffer-and I'm not talking about just the work that's supposed to be done on a given day, but the work for two or three days down the road-we go and check in which work center the materials are stuck. And then..."
"And then you expedite!" Bob jumps in.
"No, nothing of the sort. We don't break setups, or light a fire. We just point out to the foreman of that work center which job we would prefer he gets to next."
"That's very interesting," I say.