machinist sounds as if he wants an apology from Peach. I'm not
about to step into that one. I also happen to know that Martinez
can't call a walkout on his own authority. So I say if the union
wants to file a grievance, okay; I'll be glad to talk to the local
president, Mike O'Donnell, later today, and we'll handle every-
thing in due course. Realizing he can't do anything more before
talking to O'Donnell anyway, Martinez finally accepts that, and
he and the hourly guy start walking back to the plant.
"So let's get them back to work," I tell Ray.
"Sure, but uh, what should we be working on?" asks Ray.
"The job we're set up to run or the one Peach wants?"
"Do the one Peach wants," I tell him.
"Okay, but we'll be wasting a set-up," says Ray.
"So we waste it!" I tell him. "Ray, I don't even know what the situation is. But for Bill to be here, there must be some kind of
emergency. Doesn't that seem logical?"
"Yeah, sure," says Ray. "Hey, I just want to know what to
do."
"Okay, I know you were just caught in the middle of all this,"
I say to try to make him feel better. "Let's just get that setup done as quick as we can and start running that part."
"Right," he says.
Inside, Dempsey passes me on his way back to the plant. He's
just come from my office and he looks like he's in a hurry to get
out of there. He shakes his head at me.
"Good luck," he says out of the corner of his mouth.
The door to my office is wide open. I walk in, and there he is.
Bill Peach is sitting behind my desk. He's a stocky, barrel-chested
guy with thick, steely-gray hair and eyes that almost match. As I
put my briefcase down, the eyes are locked onto me with a look
that says This is your neck, Rogo.
"Okay, Bill, what's going on?" I ask.
He says, "We've got things to talk about. Sit down."
I say, "I'd like to, but you're in my seat."
It may have been the wrong thing to say.
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"You want to know why I'm here?" he says. "I'm here to save your lousy skin."
I tell him, "Judging from the reception I just got, I'd say
you're here to ruin my labor relations."
He looks straight at me and says, "If you can't make some
things happen around here, you're not going to have any labor to
worry about. Because you're not going to have this plant to worry
about. In fact, you may not have a job to worry about, Rogo."
"Okay, wait a minute, take it easy," I say. "Let's just talk about it. What's the problem with this order?"
First of all, Bill tells me that he got a phone call last night at
home around ten o'clock from good old Bucky Burnside, presi-
dent of one of UniCo's biggest customers. Seems that Bucky was
having a fit over the fact that this order of his (41427) is seven
weeks late. He proceeded to rake Peach over the coals for about
an hour. Bucky apparently had gone out on a limb to sway the
order over to us when everybody was telling him to give the
business to one of our competitors. He had just had dinner with
several of his customers, and they had dumped all over him be-
cause their orders were late—which, as it happens, was because of
us. So Bucky was mad (and probably a little drunk). Peach was
able to pacify him only by promising to deal with the matter
personally and by guaranteeing that the order would be shipped
by the end of today, no matter what mountains had to be moved.
I try to tell Bill that, yes, we were clearly wrong to have let
this order slide, and I'll give it my personal attention, but did he
have to come in here this morning and disrupt my whole plant?
So where was I last night, he asks, when he tried to call me at
home? Under the circumstances, I can't tell him I have a personal
life. I can't tell him that the first two times the phone rang, I let it
ring because I was in the middle of a fight with my wife, which,
oddly enough, was about how little attention I've been giving her.
And the third time, I didn't answer it because we were making
up.
I decide to tell Peach I was just late getting home. He doesn't
press the issue. Instead, he asks how come I don't know what's
going on inside my own plant. He's sick and tired of hearing
complaints about late shipments. Why can't I stay on top of
things?
"One thing I do know," I tell him, "is that after the second round of layoffs you forced on us three months ago, along with
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the order for a twenty percent cutback, we're lucky to get any-
thing out the door on time."
"Al," he says quietly, "just build the damn products. You
hear me?"
"Then give me the people I need!" I tell him.
"You've got enough people! Look at your efficiencies, for
god's sake! You've got room for improvement, Al," he says.
"Don't come crying to me about not enough people until you
show me you can effectively use what you've got."
I'm about to say something when Peach holds up his hand
for me to shut my mouth. He stands up and goes over to close the door. Oh shit, I'm thinking.
He turns by the door and tells me, "Sit down."
I've been standing all this time. I take a seat in one of the
chairs in front of the desk, where a visitor would sit. Peach re-
turns behind the desk.
"Look, Al, it's a waste of time to argue about this. Your last
operations report tells the story," says Peach.
I say, "Okay, you're right. The issue is getting Burnside's
order shipped—"
Peach explodes. "Dammit, the issue is not Burnside's order!
Burnside's order is just a symptom of the problem around here.
Do you think I'd come down here just to expedite a late order?
Do you think I don't have enough to do? I came down here to
light a fire under you and everybody else in this plant. This isn't
just a matter of customer service. Your plant is losing money."
He pauses for a moment, as if he had to let that sink in. Then
—bam—he pounds his fist on the desk top and points his finger
at me.
"And if you can't get the orders out the door," he continues,
"then I'll show you how to do it. And if you still can't do it, then
I've got no use for you or this plant."
"Now wait a minute, Bill—"
"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!"
"Yes, I know that, Bill."
"What you may not know is that this division is facing the
worst losses in its history. We're falling into a hole so deep we may
never get out, and your plant is the anchor pulling us in."
I feel exhausted already. Tiredly I ask him, "Okay, what do
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&n
bsp; you want from me? I've been here six months. I admit it's gotten
worse instead of better since I've been here. But I'm doing the
best I can."
"If you want the bottom line, Al, this is it: You've got three
months to turn this plant around," Peach says.
"And suppose it can't be done in that time?" I ask.
"Then I'm going to go to the management committee with a
recommendation to close the plant," he says.
I sit there speechless. This is definitely worse than anything I
expected to hear this morning. And, yet, it's not really that sur-
prising. I glance out the window. The parking lot is filling with
the cars of the people coming to work first shift. When I look
back, Peach has stood up and is coming around the desk. He sits
down in the chair next to me and leans forward. Now comes the
reassurance, the pep talk.
"Al, I know that the situation you inherited here wasn't the
best. I gave you this job because I thought you were the one who
could change this plant from a loser to ... well, a small winner
at least. And I still think that. But if you want to go places in this
company, you've got to deliver results."
"But I need time, Bill."
"Sorry, you've got three months. And if things get much
worse, I may not even be able to give you that."
I sit there as Bill glances at his watch and stands up, discus-
sion ended.
He says, "If I leave now, I'll only miss my first meeting."
I stand up. He walks to the door.
Hand on the knob, he turns and says with a grin, "Now that
I've helped you kick some ass around here, you won't have any
trouble getting Bucky's order shipped for me today, will you?"
"We'll ship it, Bill," I say.
"Good," he says with wink as he opens the door.
A minute later, I watch from the window as he gets into his
Mercedes and drives toward the gate.
Three months. That's all I can think about.
I don't remember turning away from the window. I don't
know how much time has passed. All of a sudden, I'm aware that
I'm sitting at my desk and I'm staring into space. I decide I'd
better go see for myself what's happening out in the plant. From
the shelf by the door, I get my hard hat and safety glasses and
head out. I pass my secretary.
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"Fran, I'll be out on the floor for a little while," I tell her as I go by.
Fran looks up from a letter she's typing and smiles.
"Okey-dokey," she says. "By the way, was that Peach's car I saw in your space this morning?"
"Yes, it was."
"Nice car," she says and she laughs. "I thought it might be yours when I first saw it."
Then I laugh. She leans forward across the desk.
"Say, how much would a car like that cost?" she asks.
"I don't know exactly, but I think it's around sixty thousand
dollars," I tell her.
Fran catches her breath. "You're kidding me! That much? I
had no idea a car could cost that much. Wow. Guess I won't be
trading in my Chevette on one of those very soon."
She laughs and turns back to her typing.
Fran is an "okey-dokey" lady. How old is she? Early forties
I'd guess, with two teen-aged kids she's trying to support. Her
ex-husband is an alcoholic. They got divorced a long time ago
. . . since then, she's wanted nothing to do with a man. Well,
almost nothing. Fran told me all this herself on my second day at
the plant. I like her. I like her work, too. We pay her a good wage
... at least we do now. Anyway, she's still got three months.
Going into the plant is like entering a place where satans and
angels have married to make kind of a gray magic. That's what it
always feels like to me. All around are things that are mundane
and miraculous. I've always found manufacturing plants to be
fascinating places—even on just a visual level. But most people
don't see them the way I do.
Past a set of double doors separating the office from the
plant, the world changes. Overhead is a grid of lamps suspended
from the roof trusses, and everything is cast in the warm, orange
hues of sodium-iodine light. There is a huge chain-link cage
which has row after row of floor-to-roof racks loaded with bins
and cartons filled with parts and materials for everything we
make. In a skinny aisle between two racks rides a man in the
basket of a forklift crane that runs along a track on the ceiling.
Out on the floor, a reel of shiny steel slowly unrolls into the
machine that every few seconds says "Ca-chunk."
Machines. The plant is really just one vast room, acres of
i-pace. filled with machines. They are organized in blocks and the
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blocks are separated by aisles. Most of the machines are painted
in solid March Gras colors—orange, purple, yellow, blue. From
some of the newer machines, ruby numbers shine from digital
displays. Robotic arms perform programs of mechanical dance.
Here and there, often almost hidden among the machines,
are the people. They look over as I walk by. Some of them wave; I
wave back. An electric cart whines past, an enormous fat guy
driving it. Women at long tables work with rainbows of wire. A
grimy guy in amorphous coveralls adjusts his face mask and
ignites a welding torch. Behind glass, a buxom, red-haired
woman pecks the keys on a computer terminal with an amber
display.
Mixed with the sights is the noise, a din with a continuous
underlying chord made by the whirr of fans, motors, the air in
the ventilators—it all sounds like an endless breath. At random
comes a BOOM of something inexplicable. Behind me ring the
alarm bells of an overhead crane rumbling up its track. Relays
click. The siren sounds. From the P.A. system, a disembodied
voice talks like God, intermittently and incomprehensibly, over
everything.
Even with all that noise, I hear the whistle. Turning, I see the
unmistakable shape of Bob Donovan walking up the aisle. He's
some distance away. Bob is what you might call a mountain of a
man, standing as he does at six-foot-four. He weighs in at about
250 pounds, a hefty portion of which is beer gut. He isn't the
prettiest guy in the world ... I think his barber was trained by
the Marines. And he doesn't talk real fancy; I suspect it's a point
of pride with him. But despite a few rough edges, which he
guards closely, Bob is a good guy. He's been production manager
here for nine years. If you need something to happen, all you do
is talk to Bob and if it can be done, it will be by the next time you
mention it.
It takes a minute or so for us to reach each other. As we get
closer, I can see he isn't very cheerful. I suppose it's mutual.
"Good morning," says Bob.
"I'm not sure what's good about it," I say. "Did you hear
about ou
r visitor?"
"Yeah, it's all over the plant," says Bob.
"So I guess you know about the urgency for shipping a cer-
tain order number 41427?" I ask him.
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He starts to turn red. "That's what I need to talk to you
about."
"Why? What's up?"
"I don't know if word reached you yet, but Tony, that master
machinist Peach yelled at, quit this morning," says Bob.
"Aw, shit," I mutter.
"I don't think I have to tell you that guys like that are not a
dime a dozen. We're going to have a tough time finding a re-
placement," says Bob.
"Can we get him back?"
"Well, we may not want him back," says Bob. "Before he
quit, he did the set-up that Ray told him to do, and put the
machine on automatic to do its run. The thing is, he didn't
tighten two of the adjusting nuts. We got little bits of machine tool
all over the floor now."
"How many parts do we have to scrap?"
"Well, not that many. It only ran for a little while."
"Will we have enough to fill that order?" I ask him.
"I'll have to check," he says. "But, see, the problem is that the machine itself is down and it may stay down for some time."
"Which one is it?" I ask.
"The NCX-10," he says.
I shut my eyes. It's like a cold hand just reached inside me
and grabbed the bottom of my stomach. That machine is the only
one of its type in the plant. I ask Bob how bad the damage is. He
says, "I don't know. They've got the thing half torn apart out
there. We're on the phone with the manufacturer right now."
I start walking fast. I want to see it for myself. God, are we in
trouble. I glance over at Bob, who is keeping pace with me.
"Do you think it was sabotage?" I ask.
Bob seems surprised. "Well, I can't say. I think the guy was
just so upset he couldn't think straight. So he screwed it up."
I can feel my face getting hot. The cold hand is gone. Now
I'm so pissed off at Bill Peach that I'm fantasizing about calling
him on the phone and screaming in his ear. It's his fault! And in
my head I see him. I see him behind my desk and hear him
telling me how he's going to show me how to get the orders out
the door. Right, Bill. You really showed me how to do it.
E.M. Goldratt
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The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, Third Revised Edition Page 2
