The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement: Chapter 18 Summary & Analysis

That evening, Alex comes home to find his mother with Sharon and Dave, cooking dinner. Sharon tells Alex that Julie called but wouldn’t tell them where she is. On Tuesday morning, Alex arrives at his office to find Bob, Stacey, Lou, and Ralph there waiting for him. They discuss what happened the day before. Alex points out that they had crippling fluctuations with only a two-stage process. Most of their manufacturing processes require as many as 15 stages, creating even more fluctuation. Alex reasons that they can no longer measure a machine or worker’s efficiency or productivity on its own—they have to consider it in terms of the entire process it contributes to.

Stacey suggests they call Jonah again, so Fran spends the next hour trying to get him on the phone. When they do, Alex explains to Jonah what happened with Herbie and that he needs to optimize his entire system, rather than make each piece efficient. Jonah tells Alex he is correct. He explains that some parts of a system are a “bottleneck resource,” a resource (or machine) who cannot keep up with the demands placed on it, making it the slowest piece of a system. They should aim to make their bottleneck’s capacity close to the market demand; the bottleneck should produce products at the same rate they can be sold. Bottlenecks, Jonah says, are neither bad nor good—they just exist and should be used to pace the entire system. Jonah must go, but he tells Alex and his staff to spend the next several days determining what their bottlenecks are.

A few days later, the conference table is covered with charts, data sheets, printouts, and so on as Alex, Bob, Stacey, Lou, and Ralph search for their bottlenecks. Ralph is frustrated—much of their data is years behind, and sorting through it could take months. Bob realizes that with his 20 years of experience at the plant, he could list off where delays usually happen, since logically, that must lead them toward the bottleneck machines. Stacey adds that the parts which are most often in short supply probably run through the bottlenecks too, so they could cross-correlate the two lists. Alex estimates that whatever machines have the most unfinished inventory in front of them might provide clues as well.

Not long after, they find themselves gathered in front of their bottleneck machines: the NCX-10, a one-of-a-kind machine for shaping metal that requires little human labor, and a heat-treating machine that cooks steel to keep it from becoming too brittle after it’s been cut. Both machines run with limited capacity, and their operations take several hours to complete a single batch of parts. Bob and his people struggle to run either machine with a full batch of parts inside it, due to the plant’s complicated logistics.

With disappointment, Alex realizes that reorganizing the plant won’t be as easy as reorganizing hikers—neither the NCX-10 nor the heat-treating machine can simply be moved to the first stage of production. The plant can’t afford to buy new machines to increase their total capacity, either. Stacey suggests that they may be able to save some time by changing their loading and set-up procedures, but it seems uncertain.