Critical Thinking

1 In a Hurry to Get the Task Completed

During the summer after barely surviving junior year at college, I was working at my father’s gas station primarily pumping gas and changing oil. I had recently taken courses in productivity, bottleneck theory, and value stream mapping, and was thinking of how I could apply that knowledge to the current tasks. My father was in the next stall replacing a drain plug manually with a torque wrench, ensuring that the plug was tightened to the correct torque as per specifications. Aha! I thought, what a waste of time! I could use a pneumatic wrench to reduce the replacement time significantly and productivity would soar. My father looked at what I was about to do and suggested against it. I was not deterred—after ...