It’s good to be back home after a week on the road. Just returned from San Diego at the Vistage/TEC International Chair Conference. I got to spend two solid days sharing with them, my favorite subject, the research of Elliott Jaques.
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Jonas and I were talking about his realization that he truly had no one responsible for the system in which his company worked. He was hesitant to assign that responsibility to Rudy.

“He’s the best supervisor we have, I just have this gut feeling that he’s not quite up to the challenge,” Jonas remarked.

“Let’s talk about Rudy and his current responsibilities in terms of Time Span,” I suggested. “Rudy is one of your top supervisors?”

“Yep,” Jonas confirmed.

“I know he responsible for daily scheduling and weekly production output. Tell me, what is his longest Time Span task, beyond the daily and weekly stuff?”

Jonas smiled. “That’s where Rudy really shines. You see, once we get out of our busy season, we go into a mode where we look nine months down the road, right before we go right back into next year’s busy season. Our sales volume isn’t volatile, but it has a predictable cycle.

“Based on the forecasts for next year that come out of our planning meetings, Rudy takes those numbers and charts out a nine-month production schedule so when we go into season, we have our par-level inventory on hand.

“But it’s more than just creating that schedule. Sometimes during the year, we have a spike in sales that will relieve some of our on-hand finished goods. Rudy is always on top of things, identifies the depletion and re-charts the ramp up to busy season. For the past two years, over that nine-month period, Rudy has come with 100 units of our par-level when it’s time to go into busy season.”

“So, the longest Time Span task that Rudy has is nine months?” -TF