Mes amis, les aventures du Professeur continuent...
Jusqu'à présent, la rencontre avec le professeur s'était avérée très précieuse, pensa John. Il était impatient d'entendre les autres suggestions du professeur. Le professeur se mit à parler.
"Change-overs are what really hurts ACME's uptime and hence productivity," The Professor commented.Pete was surprised."Even you were impressed with our system of having a white board to document logistics status for each future job," said Pete."You are correct," responded The Professor."However, a change-over takes you about 2-3 hours and you have one or two change-overs per line per day," The Professor added."We have a high product mix business, it's what we do," said John."The good news is, you can cut your change-over time to 30 minutes," shared The Professor."How?" asked John increduously."By using feeder racks," explained The Professor."These racks allow you to setup the component reels for the next job while the current job is running.Admittedly they cost about $30,000, but they will pay for themselves in weeks.Right now you lose more than two hours per change-over loading the feeders on to the component placement machines.With the feeder racks, you just roll them and lock them in place," said The Professor.
Pete moaned, "We already have feeder racks.We only used them once, because they stick on the carpet when we move them."This comment caused The Professor to groan internally, but he hid it well.He had noticed the frayed carpet near the component placement machines.John was beside himself."It's a good thing we are not The Professor's students……I don't think we would be heading for an 'A,' " he thought.John responded to Pete's comment, "Pete, let's get facilities to remove that rug and start using the feeder racks ASAP."
Patty listened to all of this with comical fascination.She had harassed Pete about using the feeder racks several times.While the meeting was going on she drew a sketch of The Professor, who is notoriously camera shy.Oh, and she decided on the restaurant,
Aujourd'hui in nearby Boston.Maybe they can pick up a
Red Sox game while they're there.
Épilogue : Six mois plus tard, le temps de fonctionnement d'ACME était de 30,4 %, ce qui est respectable. John n'a jamais eu à acheter une autre ligne. L'amélioration de la productivité a permis à ACME d'augmenter sa part de marché. Le dîner et le match de baseball de Patty ont été un succès total. Elle a géré sa victoire avec modestie et elle et Pete sont devenus les meilleurs amis. Pete a également rejoint les rangs des nombreux admirateurs du Professeur.
Note du Dr Ron : Je sais qu'une histoire comme celle-ci peut sembler trop comique pour être vraie. Chaque point et les chiffres associés concernant le temps de fonctionnement, le temps perdu, etc. sont tous basés sur une situation réelle, sans aucune exagération. L'épilogue, cependant, est fictif, tout comme le conflit amical (?) entre Patty et Pete. Les noms ont été changés afin de protéger les innocents (les coupables ?).
Quel est votre temps de disponibilité ?
Santé,
Dr. Ron
