In the fourth portion of The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, Alex is faced with yet another problem at his UniCo plant. After developing a system to move materials productively through essential bottleneck parts, the plant was able to ship significantly more orders, reaching a landmark for the company. However, in the process of moving items through the bottlenecks more quickly, the plant appeared to be developing new bottlenecks. According to Jonah's definition, the machines that began to hold up orders were not actually bottlenecks, though. The group had to brainstorm ways to keep the non-bottlenecks producing at the same pace as the bottlenecks throughout the entire plant. The solution that the plant receives is to cut batch sizes in half. By cutting down the batch sizes, materials can flow more quickly through each process. This will require more set-ups on non-bottleneck machines, but the plant is able to justify this since the non-bottleneck machines are able to have idle time as a result of the flow of materials being determined by bottlenecks.
The plant is full of skeptics, but once Alex convinces the group to disregard the cost accounting aspects of their operations, it becomes clear that the plant can not only eliminate backups at non-bottleneck material; they can also determine fairly accurate due dates for customer orders. It becomes clear that with the new system the group has implemented, the average time for completion for customers orders has decreased from four months to four weeks. The next issue the plant faces is maintaining a steady flow of incoming orders to match their production speed. If operations continue at a brisk pace while the flow of orders stays the same, the plant will quickly work through all of its orders and run out of work. Alex contacts the marketing department and asks to promote the new, quick production times that the plant is able to offer. Soon enough, the plant is bringing in increased sales, and even regaining old customer contracts.
The next area of difficulty that Alex faces is trying to convince his managers that the plant is indeed on the right track, since all of their improvements go against traditional cost accounting procedures. After explaining the intricacies of the changes that have been implemented in the UniCo plant to the company's productions manager, who does not buy in to Alex's strategies, it appears that Alex's plant may quite possibly be shut down. However, when Alex speaks to his manager, he realizes that he is actually being promoted and will be in charge of managing three plants.
Alex has two months remaining at his UniCo plant, and has to determine who he wants to promote to fill newly vacated managerial positions, and is surprised by his group members' responses. His first challenge is to convince Lou, his accountant, to come with him as the controller. Lou is a year away from retirement and Alex thinks it will be difficult to convince Lou to step into a new position, but Lou is so motivated by the changes they have made in the plant and the new discoveries he has found in accounting methods that he asks Alex to bring him along. Next, Alex wants to put Bob in charge of production, but Bob does not want that position. Throughout all of the changes made in the plant, Bob has been the most skeptical. Seeing the success of the changes has made Bob want to become the plant manager, so that he can work to combine production with sales, which until then he never thought possible. The next question is who should be in charge of productions. As each position is filled or passed over, there is one consistency: everyone has become more passionate about their job and the ways that they can work together to make the plant as productive as possible.
Outside of the plant, Alex also manages to repair his relationship with his wife. They had been separated since the time of the hike, and Alex has tried to create more date nights and time for Julie to rekindle their relationship. After a certain point, Alex asks Julie to consider what she wants from their marriage. What is their goal? While it may not be as simple as running a plant, it helped the couple to recognize that they had been coasting on other people's expectations of what marriage should be, without making it their own. They began to take one another for granted and failed to communicate. Now, Alex and Julie are embarking on a second wind of their marriage, trying to implement those necessary changes to keep things running. They recognize that there will be bumps along the way, but they are willing to work through them, the same way that Alex was able to pick up the plant in its time of need.
No comments:
Post a Comment