“We definitely are not maximizing our efficiency with our
production staff,” said the plant manager, her frustration evident.
“No doubt about it,” explained the chief engineer. “We have a
relatively small line of products here. There are some nuances, but they
are all similar to produce. We thought we could ramp up production
when we created the bonus plan, but it hasn’t really worked.”
“Yeah,” added the plant manager, “there is real opportunity to make
significant money through the bonus plan, but the employees on the line
don’t seem to adapt and focus to take advantage of it.”
“Explain to me how the bonus system works,” I said.
“OK. It’s a little tricky,” warned the plant manager.
“That’s fine, I’m sure it can’t be too hard,” I replied, knowing that
excessive complexity was one of the major problems of any SEAL unit
(or any military unit) on the battlefield. It was essential to keep things
simple so that everyone on the team understood.
“Honestly, it is pretty complex,” the plant manager answered, “as
there are a lot of different aspects that we needed to work in to ensure
that the different facets of production were accounted for.”
“Well maybe you could just give me the basics then,” I requested.
The plant manager began: “OK. So it all starts off with a base level
of productivity. Now, as you know, we have six different units that we
assemble here, each with varying levels of complexity. So what we did
was give them a weight. Our most commonly produced model sets the
standard with a weight of 1.0. Our most complex model is weighted 1.75
and the simplest model is a .50, with the other models weighted
somewhere in between based on the level of difficulty in assembly.”
“Of course, those are what we call the ‘base weights,’” added the
chief engineer. “Depending on the orders we get for various models, we
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