Evil Lorraine Surfaces.

Generally speaking, the last week of January 1997 was a bitch. Over the past several months the topic of our summer shutdown had been hotly debated, manufacturing taking the position that

a needed rest during the middle of our summer vacation period would serve two purposes:

1). Give us a break during what has traditionally been our heavy production period

And

2). Provide maintenance the opportunity to actually fix things that are broken as well as to provide time to get to jobs that take too much time during "the regular season".

The opposition, took the stance that manufacturing couldn't possibly shut down for 3 days in early July due to heavy demands. Additionally, a costly pre-build would have to be employed to assure customer service levels.

Based upon a previous record of 12 of 14 monthly undersells, the information relating to forecast demands was taken as information only, not policy, and the decision was made to shut down

for the first week of July.

'Twas the beginning of the end for the evil Lorraine.

As we settled into the January efforts, two "surprises" came into play.

First, a chart prepared by the evil Lorraine (just mentioned) was made public in a meeting with our major customer showing we could not meet demands through the entire summer, starting in April.

The second surprise was a detailed document dated January 15, 1997 that laid out an increase of over 100% within a six month time frame, all aimed at our outmoded Drum Filling operation, the beloved 86 line.

The second surprise I would categorize as a simple act of cowardice, having come from within our

own group of Product Managers. It's these folks who are supposed to check with Manufacturing to see if there is available capacity BEFORE committing. Probably somebody forgot and by the time this unfortunate over-sight came into play, everything was too far along to stop. So mums

the word until you’re caught, and then hey, try and blame someone else.

Knowing the whole thing helps fix this problem, and knowing cowards will always be cowards, all you gotta do is figure out who's who.

With regards to the first surprise, the undoable schedule submitted for public viewing by the evil Lorraine, this behavior requires a much more complicated and difficult solution. Some people are devoid of any accomplishments, yet rise through an organization using their abilities to point out the failures of others while actually accomplishing nothing themselves.

The evil Lorraine, who desperately wanted to be in control of Manufacturing (mostly for status, not because she had anything to offer) jumped too quickly and took a small, whole in the wall promotion and missed, by three months or so, the opening she really wanted.

Things being the way they were, she'd probably have obtained control. Oh well, the only conclusion I can come to is that these self-absorbed "ones" eventually screw themselves. It's just too bad how much damage they do along the way.

The undoable chart was simply thrown away by the replacement of the evil Lorraine with the comment "this never should have been shown in public, it's bad information based upon bad assumptions".

We all agreed to start again. Keep your eyes on the evil ones; it’s usually a matter of self-defence.