VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [76]
“All right, let’s see,” said Tom as he finished passing out pennies and dice. “Now, all of you start with the same four pennies as before. Are you ready?”
The dice again chattered on the dining room table. The pennies were slid from person to person. And in the first game week, they moved a total of twenty pennies across the finish line. In the second week, they moved a mere thirteen, due mostly to Amy’s lower-than-average rolls as the constraint. All five turns, she never rolled higher than a three with her one die. But in the third week, the unbalanced line processed nineteen pennies. In the fourth week: a fabulous twenty-one cents. These made for a grand total of eighty-three pennies – handily beating the lean, level balanced line.
As expected, the pennies in process had soon backed up in front of Amy. By the end of the fourth week, there were forty-two pennies in queue in front of her. But once through the constraint, the pennies had flowed quickly to and across the finish line.
“Wow. That’s very different from what I expected,” said Amy. “I really thought the best that we would be able to do would be to equal the balanced line. Because the most I could roll was the same as before.”
“That’s true,” said Tom, “but you always had plenty to process. The inventory came to you quickly and was moved to the finish line quickly.”
“Right, although of course it took twice the capacity, which in the real world costs a lot more than dice,” said Amy, “and look at the work-in-process!”
“Yes, the WIP at the end of the month was … sixty-three pennies,” said Tom, checking the tally. “With the balanced line, WIP was in forties, or double the starting WIP. The constrained line tripled the WIP by the end of the month. But your throughput more than met the target.”
“So assuming all the pennies went to market and were sold,” said Amy, “we probably made a good profit.”
“We made a pretty penny then!” said Zelda.
The kids groaned.
“If you’re up for playing a third round,” said Tom, “I can show you how you can keep the system constraint, get good throughput, and have low work-in-process inventory. What we need is a signal –”
At that moment, the doorbell rang.
“For pizza!” shouted Ben, leaping out of his seat.
“I’m getting it!” yelled Michelle, running after him.
“I’m buying,” said Zelda, motioning her daughter to stay seated as she got up to get her purse.
Tom looked down the table at Amy and said, “Well, I guess the game is over. We lost half our workforce.”
“But thanks,” Amy said to him. “That was enlightening.”
“So have you punched out from work?” he asked. “Are we going to have some fun tonight?”
“I hope so.”
The pizzas – Amy had ordered two – were devoured. Harry raved that he couldn’t remember ever having pizza so good, and he alone consumed four pieces and would have had more if Zelda had not pushed the pizza box out of reach. Twenty minutes later, Harry was in the bathroom, sick.
“I’d better get him home,” said Zelda. “I’m sorry.”
With Tom in his Mustang as a chase car, Amy drove the big Ford to her parents’ house and helped her mother settle Harry in for the night. She rode back with Tom. But that blew their plans for the evening, because now there was no one to stay with Amy’s kids.
“Aren’t they old enough to stay home by themselves?” asked Tom.
“I just don’t feel comfortable with that,” Amy told him. “How about watching a movie in the living room?”
“Fine,” he said without much enthusiasm.
She let him pick it, thinking that would pacify him. But halfway through, in the middle of the car chase with orange explosions on the screen lighting the room, Tom looked at her face and observed that Amy had drifted off – not to sleep, which had often been the case before, but to somewhere else, away from him. He pressed the pause button on the remote.
“What?” she asked, snapping back.
“Are you at work again?” he asked with disgust.
“Well … I just thinking about the dice game. I’m going to question Wayne about the constraint idea on Monday, and I was just thinking about the best way to do that.