The Goal

Alex meets with Johnny Jons. He asks for “ten million dollars worth” (309) of additional business for the plant. Jons protests that he can’t pluck orders out of thin air, so Alex asks for the orders Jons would normally turn down, those with too quick a turnaround time. Alex is also willing to accept orders ten percent below cost. Jons is reluctant, but does share news of one customer, a French man who has been lowballing the cost. Alex agrees to take it. “I told you that I have spare capacity” (312), he says. “If we take this order, the only out-of-pocket cost to produce these products will be the cost of materials” (312). In return, the French business owner must agree to use Alex’s plant exclusively for the next year. Jons and the French business owner both agree to these terms.

While driving home, Alex thinks about science. Scientists, he realizes, “reveal the intrinsic order of things […] and Jonah is a scientist” (315). He goes home to Julie and shares this insight with her. He explains that when physicists approach something, they don’t collect data, but “start with one phenomenon” (317), ask questions, and perform tests. “It all seems to be based on one key relationship: IF…THEN” (317). She, in turn, shares what she’s learned in the Socratic dialogues she’s been reading. The dialogues are “done in exactly the same way, through exactly the same relationship” (318). 

Alex receives a call from Bill Peach, congratulating him on his new order with the French businessman. Bill asks Alex to explain Jonah’s concepts to him some time. Alex goes to tell his team about the call but finds Stacey and Bob in a panic. Several departments have had to go into unplanned overtime, and Stacey thinks they “simply accepted more orders than we can process” (321). They gather the team together. They see that the bottlenecks are not overloaded, but rather starved, until work comes in waves too huge to process. This necessitates costly overtime. Bob explains that if the “upstream resources don’t have spare capacity, we won’t be able to utilize even one single resource to the maximum” (325).

They decide that they are not allowing enough inventory to accumulate in front of the bottleneck before putting it to work. They can increase it, but this will mean the orders won’t be shipped according to their projected dates. They were too ambitious. Alex decides they can promise delivery times of no shorter than four weeks from the receipt of the order. This may jeopardize the French deal, but also indicates a larger problem. As Alex says, “We’re reacting rather than planning” (327). 

Lou and Alex visit the other plants in the division and are both proud and disappointed to see that no plant is working as well as the Bearington plant. “It’s the real savior” (328). Lou warns Alex that many small decisions will be necessary to turn the other plants around, “but that doesn’t mean that we can afford to be satisfied with actions that improve the situation” (329) and must concentrate on the best solutions, not just any solution. They decide to utilize the five step process the advisory team developed. First, they must identify the system’s constraints. Alex proposes that, as an organization is a group of people, or links, the first step is to identify the weakest links. He also identifies attitudes as a major constraint—“the basic rule of nature is that a project never finishes on time” (333). The real constraints, Alex explains, were not machines, they “‘were the policies’” (334). How can they identify the worst policies? Alex thinks he might call Jonah and ask how to “identify the core problem” (335). They move on to how to potentially elevate a bad policy, by changing it. Alex decides that they’ll need the “light-bulb idea” (336) Jonah was so good at fostering in Alex. They will need to answer the questions, “what to change?” (336), and “what to change to?” (336). To do this, Alex realizes, he will need to learn to ask the right questions, put aside preconceptions, and think creatively. He will need to become his own Jonah.