VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [47]
Amy gritted her teeth.
“Okay. Fine,” she said. “Let’s assume Wayne is stuck with a dryer that takes twice as long as the washer. In that case, the way he would balance the line is by shifting people around so that everyone stays busy all the time. Or maybe he would determine that the laundry line doesn’t require four people. Maybe demand only calls for three people on the laundry line.”
The instant Amy said that she regretted it, because Michelle’s eyes popped.
“Mom!” Michelle said. “Can I get laid off?”
Ben’s hand immediately shot up. “No! Me! Pick me! I want to get fired!”
“Sorry,” said their mom, “but it is stated in the Cieolara family contract that all kids must help do laundry. If anyone is going to be laid off, it’s going to be Grandma.”
“Oh, I don’t mind helping,” said Zelda.
“And once Grandma retires from laundry, I’m next,” said Amy.
But then she looked at Michelle and saw a devilish gleam in her daughter’s little eyes.
“Hey, Mom, I’ve got an idea,” said Michelle. “And I mean this one is big.”
“I’m listening.”
“What if we set up the laundry so that it wouldn’t take four people, or three, or even two? What if we could do everything with just one person?”
Ben was immediately on her wavelength. He grinned at his mother and began slyly pointing at his sister.
Amy folded her arms on her chest and said, “No way. I know what you’re trying to pull. You’re just trying to get out of laundry duty.”
“But Mom!”
“No. You’re both doing laundry and that’s final. The boss has spoken.”
“Mom, listen!” said Ben. “Suppose we add up all the minutes for all the steps and it turns out that we can balance one person’s time against the dryer’s time – which is like at least an hour. What if it turns out that one person really can do it all. Wouldn’t it make sense to give it a try?”
“And we can take turns,” said Michelle. “Ben can do laundry one week and I’ll do it the next!”
“Right!” said Ben. “That way we’ll both be doing laundry, but only half as much!”
Amy looked at Zelda for a reaction, and Zelda simply shrugged her shoulders.
“I know you’re trying to give them a work ethic,” said Zelda, “but if they can really do it on their own … in half the time …”
Considering this, Amy turned to her kids and told them, “Now listen. It has to be a quality job. I’m not going to accept either of you rushing through it just to go watch television.”
“Of course! We’ll be careful,” said Michelle.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Amy muttered. “But … show me how efficiently you can work, and I’ll think about it.”
Instantly the pace of ironing and folding picked up.
“Mom,” said Ben, “I have one more question.”
“Yes?”
“If we’re going to treat laundry like a business, when am I going to get a raise?”
“Just as soon as I get one,” said his mother.
“Well, Jayro, get out the plywood and start a-nailin’ because Hurricane Wayne is about to blow.”
“How come you say that?” asked Jayro, adding a nice heap of rice to his gumbo.
“The Black Belts have determined that many of our fine workers are underutilized,” said Murphy Maguire.
“Under-what?”
“Underutilized. That was their exact word. And therefore, they intend to balance the line.”
“Balance the line? What does that mean?”
“It means woe and trouble, or so my gut tells me. But, as Wayne Reese explained it to me, a balanced line means production in which capacity is equal to demand – exactly just enough people, equipment, materials, and time to do the job. Each and every process along the way is balanced with respect to all the others so that theoretically the flow proceeds with minimal waste. Too few resources and the process – whatever it may be – will not deliver to the next process on time, and quality may be sacrificed in the hurry to catch up. Too many resources – which is to say more capacity than necessary – drives up costs, and that means higher prices or thinner profits or both. By the way, your wife’s Louisiana upbringing is shining through today. The gumbo is superb.”
“Thanks. I’ll tell