Here’s a personal reflection from my distant past that might describe a current state for some of you.

When I began working in manufacturing during the pre-lean era, the quoted lead time for my company’s products averaged 12 to 16 weeks. By the 1980s, however, many customers began to routinely object to our promised deliveries, and we would then try to accommodate them by moving “hot” jobs to the front of the queue and bumping the jobs that were already there. Bumping, of course, is like cutting in line except it’s not immediately obvious to those that are bumped.

Eventually the bumpees also become irritated. One long-time customer remarked to me, “I always give you plenty of lead time, but you still miss the due date.” This unfortunately was true—and inevitable. We bumped customers until they were late. To paraphrase W. Edwards Deming, our bump-and-grind production system was “perfectly designed” to produce long lead times, late deliveries, and dissatisfied customers. We tried mightily to mask our problem with tactical workarounds, but they were doomed to fail. Here’s a short list of perverse tactics we tried.

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