Number of words – 201

An employee of a controls manufacturers, found that he was constantly shuttling to the purchasing department to ask for more parts. Not only that, sometimes the parts that he needed weren’t there even in the company stockroom.

On his own initiative, he began collecting information about the parts used. How many had been used in the last 3 months? How did use change over a six month period? What was the lead time to get each part from the supplier? With numbers in hand, he approached the production manager with his idea for a simpler way to track the parts. Using magnetic tabs, be designed a board that indicates the status of inventory colour: a green arrow showing the current stock levels of all the parts he needs, a red square at the reorder point for each part. As inventory shrinks, arrows closing on squares, threatening to gobble them in pac-man fashion. When arrows and squares drift dangerously close, parts need to be reordered. ‘Ever since I got this board, I ran out much less than I used to. I can see where I stand in about 2 minutes.’

Excerpted from ‘1001 Ways to Take Initiative at Work’ by Bob Nelson