Sustainable Lean

119

14

A War on Two Fronts

I’d like to report that things at home had settled down and that my only

concerns were at work, but that would be untrue, and hey, I am all about

transparency, right?

One of the rst things the hospital did was to take a hair sample from

Joyce. ey tested it and the test revealed that Joyce had been using drugs

for at least six months, which we were told, meant that she had a serious

habit.

I checked with our insurance company. e policy covered drug

treatment and rehabilitation, for twelve weeks. e hospital was telling

us that it would take that long before she’d get released to a halfway

house. Of course, we had brought Joyce in voluntarily, rather than

thecourt mandating that she be admitted. at would mean that we’d

have to make the decision to send her to the halfway house when that

timecame.

Bridget was now numb and detached all the time. I was used to someone

who had apassion for life and a zest about the way she lived. It felt like I

was married to someone who was the black-and-white analog of my full-

color wife. It was heartbreaking.

Of course, I didn’t have time to have a broken heart. I had a child in drug

rehabilitation, a wife who was a mere shell of herself, a son who needed

me now more than ever, and a business to run. Oh, and did I mention

that Iwas racing a clock I couldn’t see that was keeping track of when Sal

would remove me?

I couldn’t aord to take medications for all the stress. Someone had to

keep their head screwed on straight.

Jim Jr. and I were spending a lot of time out of the house. We went

go-kart racing and to batting cages and to miniature golf and anything

120 • Sustainable Lean: e Story of a Cultural Transformation

else I could gure out to keep our minds diverted. We still talked a lot,

even about Bridget and Joyce. I never talked about work, though.

I’d see him to bed at 9:00 p.m, then do any homework I’d brought home.

Corporate had sent in someone to act in Phil’s behalf. He spent a lot of

time asking questions and needing guidance. What a role reversal. It made

me be all the more pissed at Phil for betraying me as he had.

Frank was the only good thing happening in my life. He and Dale had

completed the Value Stream Map that Dale had begun. ey’d reviewed it

with the Lean Council and shown them how to use it.

“Working back from the customer,” Frank had said, “you want to open

the pipeline so that parts ow faster.” He put both his arms out straight

in front of him and spread them vertically, imitating an opening of some-

thing or other.

“Most folks mistakenly go for the place where they have the biggest

problem, but think back to the airplane game. What was our biggest

problem?”

“Jim,” came the universal reply. We all got a chuckle before Frank gath-

ered us back in.

“So, if station 3 was the biggest problem, what would have happened had

you solved the problem there? Answer: you’d have raced through station

3 only to have been caught at station 4, which was only slightly faster. You

still wouldn’t have met Takt Time or gotten planes to the customer any

faster.”

“No,” he continued, “you’ve got to work your way backward from the

customer. You’ll recall that we actually solved the problem at station

4 at the same time we solved station 3. at way, any corrections you

made elsewhere would ow right through to the customer. at remains

true until Takt Time gets lower than the cycle time at stations 3 and 4.

en, you’ll have to go back and re-Kaizen stations 3 and 4 again. Make

sense?”

ere were thoughtful nods around the table.

So, armed with the knowledge of the completed Value Stream Map

(VSM), Frank and Dale had rst gone to the Finished Goods Inventory

(FGI) warehouse. ere, they set up something Frank called a supermarket.

A supermarket, in this case, was nothing more than specic locations for

every product we shipped. at product, and only that product, got put in

that location every time.

Justine had been successful in convincing our customers that it was

intheir best interest to get weekly shipments of product, so Frank, Dale,