VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [112]
They saw each other again Sunday afternoon. Amy had by then put her feelings in check. Still, he coaxed her to a walk in the park. Just the two of them in the open. It felt awkward being together. They said good-bye.
They saw each other Monday. He came over after dinner. It being a nice, though cool evening, they sat on the porch together. She began asking a lot of questions. He became impatient at the probing, then got huffy and left. But there were things she felt she needed to know, and satisfied with his answers, she called him an hour later.
They saw each other on Tuesday evening. She went to his place. There was no discussion. Afterward, they talked for hours.
By Thursday, they were able to talk about the mundane. He was unsure whether to restart his aviation business or try to do something else. But he still had a lot in savings, plus his military pension, and he didn’t have to decide right away.
“How’s work going?” he asked her.
She told him about the UDE tree, and some of what they had learned in the process.
“Well, sounds like you’ve got your issues,” he commented. “You see, in people’s minds, ‘balance’ is good, and ‘constraint’ is bad. It’s not until they see the principles play out that they understand it’s actually the opposite in a practical world. That little dice game we played at your house however many months ago? The basis of that is valid.”
“I remember you saying there were a couple of other ways to play that.”
“Yeah, there’s one way that dramatically drops your inventories. And there is a fourth way that gives you fantastic results.”
Amy put her arm around his taut waist.
“What are you doing this Saturday?” she asked him.
“I don’t know. Why? Do you want to do something?”
“Well, I’m already committed. But I was wondering if you would do a favor for me.”
“That depends on what kind of favor.” he said.
“I was wondering if you would teach that game to the Hi-T people I’m having over.”
“It’ll cost ya.”
She smiled and whispered, “Then I guess I’ll just have to ante up.”
14
“The most important finding gained this past week in Rockville,” said Wayne Reese, “was that the F&D staff spends a really high percentage of their time – from twenty to as much as forty percent or higher – on tasks that contribute no value from the customer’s point of view.”
“The client’s point of view,” Sarah said, correcting him. “We generally refer to the customer as a ‘client’ at Rockville.”
“Yes, well, in any case, there is a hell of a lot of muda at F&D – no offense to Sarah or anyone working there,” said Wayne.
“No offense taken,” Sarah said in a listless tone.
It was Saturday morning, just one week after the first meeting around Amy’s dining room table. Missing from the first group were Jayro Pepps and Kurt Konani, who were at Oakton sorting some critical inventory issues. But everyone else was there: Wayne, Sarah, Murphy, Elaine, Garth, and, of course, Amy. Her kids had once again given up their house for the day on the promise that this would be the last time for at least a while – and some cash for each of them to spend at the mall.
Unfurled across that dining room table was a long sheet of butcher paper with notes and arrows and stick-on blue dots, orange dots, red dots, and so on showing the general flow of work through F&D. This was Wayne’s “quick and dirty” value stream map, or VSM, that he had put together.
“Now, you see the blue dots,” Wayne continued. “Those indicate an action in the flow that contributes value. The orange dots add no value, but are necessary – things like regulatory requirements or internal administrative processes. But the red dots are where waste occurs. They add no value, but are part of the total process because of outdated policy or just plain old inertia – just the way things have always been done – and so on. Just look at the number of those red dots. Every one of them represents an opportunity to eliminate waste by applying Lean and –”
“Wait a minute,