Imagine my surprise when I began to go through JHA’s purchase department data and discovered that they are carrying an average of seventy-four days of inventory. For a few moments I could not say anything as I was struck dumb by the sheer incompetence.

I just sat there next to the purchase manager, an imbecile called Saraf, unable to speak. I clicked through spreadsheet after spreadsheet feeling the blood drain from my face. Saraf asked me if there was any issue. I told him that his entire materials management system had problems and needed a complete overhaul. He thought about it, said he did not think so, and stepped out for a smoke.

If any of the guys in the department had done even a basic course in inventory management they would know that this is a crime punishable by death. In this day and age of lean manufacturing and just-in-time processes, a company the size of JHA should not be carrying more than ten to fifteen days of inventory. Normally, I would have included this in my observations and presented it at the end of the whole project to the JHA leadership team. Indeed this is what most consultants would have done. I say with some shame that many of my management consulting colleagues place their own comfort above the need to help the client.

I am not one of them.

I decided then and there that there was no time to lose. JHA’s inventory system had reached a critical level and someone had to do something about it. And that someone … was me.

I immediately told Saraf that he had to summon everyone in the department for an emergency workshop on inventory management and elementary stocking strategies that I would conduct personally. I booked one of the small conference rooms in the factory for our workshop and quickly drew up a small presentation and a short but exhaustive list of homework problems for the attendees. Then I rigged up the projector to my laptop and waited while Saraf returned with the audience.

Ten minutes later he came back and said that the other person in his two-member team was on leave. So only he was available for my course.

I did not let this puncture my morale.

I realized within the first ten minutes that Saraf is a complete nincompoop. He knows practically nothing about anything. When I asked him to name any one tool that could be used to optimize stocking and inventory management I was hoping he would say EOQ, Buffer stocking, Kanban or any such modern stock management philosophy.

Instead, Saraf said ‘forklift’.

One after the other I tried to explain to him the various basic concepts of optimizing inventory. The man understood nothing.

Finally, when I was about to give up, he said that he liked the idea of ‘economic order quantity’. I swear it was like that scene in The Sixth Sense when Bruce Willis realizes he is actually a ghost and then everything falls into place and the story ends nicely. I then sat with him and we did a comprehensive overview of EOQ and I taught him how to use the equations to order various items.