VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [128]
Kurt, as he walked along with Murphy, pointed out and explained these improvements with clear pride, and yet also with humility, even a certain embarrassment. Because Kurt knew full well that the sum of all these improvements had accrued to not very much – and in fact to nothing when it came to the basic and necessary purpose of the business overall, which was to make money.
When Murphy walked into the Autoclave area, he regarded Godzilla with a sense of déjà vu. The day-turn supervisor, Richy, came over to shake his hand.
“So how’s our favorite monster been treating you?” Murphy asked.
Richy just looked down and shook his head.
“Well, we’re going to get down to business here shortly,” Murphy told him. “Anything you need?”
“I could use some of the old hands back,” said Richy.
“Are they still around?”
“All but one or two.”
“Then you’ll get ’em,” said Murphy.
Within the week, a number of the veterans who had serviced Godzilla prior to balancing the line were back in place. Over Kurt’s objections, the Lean pacemaker scheduling practice on the M57 Line was discontinued. Godzilla was designated as the Drum for all operations. And Murphy soon had a task group working to peg inventory planning, scheduling, and shipping dates to the rhythms of Godzilla’s output.
Almost immediately after assuming the mantle of production manager, Murphy began organizing meetings for all of Oakton’s managers and supervisors, and soon, with Wayne Reese’s cooperation, every manager within the Operations sphere. Murphy had everyone play the dice game simulation learned from Tom Dawson, so that they would understand the practicality of a constrained, unbalanced line. Afterward, they would talk about how their individual functions could best serve the flow to and from the Drum.
From a production standpoint, the turnaround began to happen with surprising speed. The wandering bottlenecks that had plagued the balanced line largely disappeared. Just as in the dice game, materials were released to production only at the rate at which they actually went into and came out of Godzilla. And under Murphy’s experienced eye, staffing reassignments ensured that there were enough hands available in unconstrained processes to move work-in-process quickly to the autoclave Drum and away from it, through Final and Packaging and into Shipping. Gone were the Lean supermarkets, as these temporary storage areas for work-in-process were no longer needed – the reason being that WIP only accumulated where it was supposed to, which was in front of the Drum.
In the end, many of the changes brought about by Lean and Six Sigma were kept. Murphy even went out of his way to compliment Kurt Konani and the Lean Green and Black Belts for their efforts – though he soon put on hold the large number of LSS projects that were scheduled until their effects could be evaluated. Some took from this that the days of Lean Six Sigma were over, that the noble experiment had run its course and management was no longer interested. But these cynics would find their disgruntlement to be premature.
For as Murphy himself would later state it: “Even an old dawg like me has new tricks to learn.”
• • •
Murphy entered the Oakton toolroom with a cast-iron kettle in hand – only to find Jayro Pepps carefully heating the bottom of a large skillet with a propane torch. In the skillet, something was crackling.
“Jayro, what are you up to?”
“What’s it look like?” asked his materials manager. “Makin’ lunch.”
“And what sort of lunch might that be?”
Jayro tipped the edge of the skillet to afford Murphy a better look.
“Trout,” he said to Murph. “Fresh caught, about six-fifteen this mornin’ on my way to work. Might share, if you got somethin’ to trade.”
“I got somethin’,” said Murphy.