Men Chatted About the Problems

¶ … men chatted about the problems of the plant at the airport. Jonah asked Alex some very pointed questions regarding the issue. This caused Alex to start thinking. Here and throughout the book, Jonah teaches Alex new concepts via a Socratic method in order to start the evaporating cloud thinking process that Goldratt uses to reduce bottlenecks in the thinking process. Here, Jonah has to calm Alex down and get him to start thinking rationally. However, he is contradicting himself. He says that he has enough materials, but that orders never leave on time and have to be expedited. This would imply an inventory control and product movement issue.

Jonah challenges Alex on his thinking about his plant's efficiency. He is trying to think outside of the box and not just according to standard formulas.

Here, Alex learns that he must manage his personnel and inventory more efficiently. Cutting back on personnel and inventory levels will not necessarily bring efficiency. Incorrect combinations of these factors can cause statistical fluctuations in work flow. Since it is impossible to predict all of these fluctuations and the confluence of dependent events, a bit of slack in the flow is necessary.

4. The speak about the robots and other components of the manufacturing process and how to get them to put the sub-assemblies to Hilton by the end of the day. By figuring out the interrelationship of statistical fluctuations and dependent events (particularly the work flow of the materials handlers), they plan to make the order exactly by the end of the day.

5. He analyzes the bottlenecks in the plant's work flow. As he says, a manager has to learn to run his plant by its constraints. Effectively managing the bottlenecks translates into the efficient management of the entire process (such as regulating the lunch breaks for the setup team better on the bottleneck machine, or finding customers once products are made).

6. Jonah reviews the new priority system in the plant and how it affects the flow of parts in the manufacturing process between bottlenecks and non-bottlenecks, pointing out that the non-bottlenecks did not have to work 24/7. In fact, they should not run all of the time so that inventory would not pile up.