Chapter 18: Self-Inflicted Wounds

Predigested Thoughts for the Busy Person

• If you repeatedly play with a loaded gun and leave it around, do not be surprised by repeated trips to the Emergency Room. You should assess what problems are controllable or avoidable and what problems are truly out of your control.

• There are good and bad times for considering when to schedule special, problematic, prototype, or changed parts. A conscious review and sequencing should be done for these parts.

• If you tell lies, they will eventually come back! Planning and scheduling needs to work with realistic estimates and not make-believe dreams.

• You have to talk to people and communicate. It is a two-way process.

• Rarely are processes and situations identical and interchangeable, You need to understand the implications of choosing one resource over another, one operator over another.

• For every action, there better be a reaction! If you pull short or make an adjustment, at least one other change in the production sequence will be needed to keep the larger plan stable.

Introduction

The last chapter talked about the naughty things other people do to mess your lovely plans and schedules; how they unintentionally reduce your capacity or create surprises for you to fix. Is everything their fault? It has to be. Production control never, ever does anything that will cost capacity, create late work, or increase costs. To some people, everything is peachy keen in planning and everything is production s or management s fault. Unfortunately, production control can make mistakes too and no one...