Up the road about a mile is a little pizza place. I see they're open, so I stop and go in. I'm conservative; I get a medium pizza with double cheese, pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, green pep- pers, hot peppers, black olives and onion, and-mmmmmmmm -a sprinkling of anchovies. While I'm waiting, I can't resist the Munchos on the stand by the cash register, and I tell the Sicilian who runs the place to put me down for a couple of bags of beer nuts, some taco chips, and-for later-some pretzels. Trauma whets my appetite.
But there's one problem. You just can't wash down beer nuts with soda. You need beer. And guess what I see in the cooler. Of course, I don't usually drink during the day... but I look at the way the light is hitting those frosty cold cans...
"Screw it."
I pull out a six of Bud.
Twenty- three dollars and sixty-two cents and I'm out of there.
Just before the plant, on the opposite side of the highway, there is a gravel road leading up a low hillside. It's an access road to a substation about half a mile away. So on impulse, I turn the wheel sharply. The Mazda goes bouncing off the highway onto the gravel and only a fast hand saves my pizza from the floor. We raise some dust getting to the top.
I park the car, unbutton my shirt, take off my tie and coat to save them from the inevitable, and open up my goodies.
Some distance below, down across the highway, is my plant. It sits in a field, a big gray steel box without windows. Inside, I know, there are about 400 people at work on day shift. Their cars are parked in the lot. I watch as a truck backs between two others sitting at the unloading docks. The trucks bring the materials which the machines and people inside will use to make some- thing. On the opposite side, more trucks are being filled with what they have produced. In simplest terms, that's what's hap- pening. I'm supposed to manage what goes on down there.
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I pop the top on one of the beers and go to work on the pizza.
The plant has the look of a landmark. It's as if it has always been there, as if it will always be there. I happen to know the plant is only about fifteen years old. And it may not be here as many years from now.
So what is the goal?
What are we supposed to be doing here?
What keeps this place working?
Jonah said there was only one goal. Well, I don't see how that can be. We do a lot of things in the course of daily operations, and they're all important. Most of them anyway... or we wouldn't do them. What the hell, they all could be goals.
I mean, for instance, one of the things a manufacturing orga- nization must do is buy raw materials. We need these materials in order to manufacture, and we have to obtain them at the best cost, and so purchasing in a cost-effective manner is very impor- tant to us.
The pizza, by the way, is primo. I'm chowing down on my second piece when some tiny voice inside my head asks me, But is this the goal? Is cost-effective purchasing the reason for the plant's existence?
I have to laugh. I almost choke.
Yeah, right. Some of the brilliant idiots in Purchasing sure do act as if that's the goal. They're out there renting warehouses to store all the crap they're buying so cost-effectively. What is it we have now? A thirty-two-month supply of copper wire? A seven- month inventory of stainless steel sheet? All kinds of stuff. They've got millions and millions tied up in what they've bought -and at terrific prices.
No, put it that way, and economical purchasing is definitely not the goal of this plant.
What else do we do? We employ people-by the hundreds here, and by the tens of thousands throughout UniCo. We, the people, are supposed to be UniCo's "most important asset," as some P.R. flack worded it once in the annual report. Brush off the bull and it is true the company couldn't function without good people of various skills and professions.
I personally am glad it provides jobs. There is a lot to be said for a steady paycheck. But supplying jobs to people surely isn't
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why the plant exists. After all, how many people have we laid off so far?
And anyway, even if UniCo offered lifetime employment like some of the Japanese companies, I still couldn't say the goal is jobs. A lot of people seem to think and act as if that were the goal (empire-building department managers and politicians just to name two), but the plant wasn't built for the purpose of paying wages and giving people something to do.
Okay, so why was the plant built in the first place?
It was built to produce products. Why can't that be the goal? Jonah said it wasn't. But I don't see why it isn't the goal. We're a manufacturing company. That means we have to manufacture something, doesn't it? Isn't that the whole point, to produce products? Why else are we here?
I think about some of the buzzwords I've been hearing lately.
What about quality?
Maybe that's it. If you don't manufacture a quality product all you've got at the end is a bunch of expensive mistakes. You have to meet the customer's requirements with a quality product, or before long you won't have a business. UniCo learned its les- son on that point.
But we've already learned that lesson. We've implemented a major effort to improve quality. Why isn't the plant's future se- cure? And if quality were truly the goal, then how come a com- pany like Rolls Royce very nearly went bankrupt?
Quality alone cannot be the goal. It's important. But it's not the goal. Why? Because of costs?
If low- cost production is essential, then efficiency would seem to be the answer. Okay... maybe it's the two of them together: quality and efficiency. They do tend to go hand-in-hand. The fewer errors made, the less re-work you have to do, which can lead to lower costs and so on. Maybe that's what Jonah meant.
Producing a quality product efficiently: that must be the goal. It sure sounds good. "Quality and efficiency." Those are two nice words. Kind of like "Mom and apple pie."
I sit back and pop the top on another beer. The pizza is now just a fond memory. For a few moments I feel satisfied.
But something isn't sitting right. And it's more than just indi- gestion from lunch. To efficiently produce quality products
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sounds like a good goal. But can that goal keep the plant work- ing?
I'm bothered by some of the examples that come to mind. If the goal is to produce a quality product efficiently, then how come Volkswagen isn't still making Bugs? That was a quality product that could be produced at low cost. Or, going back a ways, how come Douglas didn't keep making DC-3's? From ev- erything I've heard, the DC-3 was a fine aircraft. I'll bet if they had kept making them, they could turn them out today a lot more efficiently than DC-10's.
It's not enough to turn out a quality product on an efficient basis. The goal has to be something else.
But what?
As I drink my beer, I find myself contemplating the smooth finish of the aluminum beer can I hold in my hand. Mass produc- tion technology really is something. To think that this can until recently was a rock in the ground. Then we come along with some know-how and some tools and turn the rock into a light- weight, workable metal that you can use over and over again. It's pretty amazing-
Wait a minute, I'm thinking. That's it!
Technology: that's really what it's all about. We have to stay on the leading edge of technology. It's essential to the company. If we don't keep pace with technology, we're finished. So that's the goal.
Well, on second thought... that isn't right. If technology is the real goal of a manufacturing organization, then how come the most responsible positions aren't in research and develop- ment? How come RD is always off to the side in every organiza- tion chart I've ever seen? And suppose we did have the latest of every kind of machine we could use-would it save us? No, it wouldn't. So technology is important, but it isn't the goal.