Alex Rogo is a plant manager who is continually fighting to meet the output requirements of his business. There are ongoing conflicts between marketing, accounting and production in the organization.
Through some suggestions from Jonah, a friendly management guru, Rogo learns to identify and manage the problem areas in the operation.
Specifically, Rogo identifies production bottlenecks that are the critical points determining the rate of production of the operation. Then he develops strategies for overcoming or living with the bottlenecks.
A bottleneck is actually fairly easy to identify. In a manufacturing environment, walk down the line until you meet a big stack of product waiting to continue along the process.
Alex revitalized by the inputs from Jonah sets on the mission with his team comprising of Lou, Bob, Stacey & Ralph. As they probe deeper into the statistics of the factory they identify several gross mistakes which should have been avoided at any cost for surviving in the market. Bottlenecks are identified and new systems like the Card system are introduced to differentiate between the critical and non-critical components. As time passes by the involvement of the entire unit increases and a tremendous transition is observed in the stock of inventory and piling orders. Results start showing by the end of second month with Al & his team giving the best results for the entire organization. On the other hand, management is unable to accept the decline in falling efficiency of the machines with a sharp rise in cash flows & profits. Johnny Jons the Marketing man is all praise for Al and his team for delivering a huge contract in a record time of five weeks when the competitors could not meet the deadline after five months. The review meeting at the end of second month ends on a positive note with the management demanding a return to the tune of 15% which has never before happened in the history of Bearington.
