Israeli Aircraft Industries, Ltd.

Sunday, February 23, 1997

Dear Eli,

We in the Wide Body Aircraft Directorate have accumulated already a year long experience in the Throughput World. Within this period of time we succeeded to drop our average turn-around-per-aircraft visit from three months to two weeks and to increase our backlog form two months to one year. As you realize and predicted in our first meeting, getting into the process made us look for continuous improvements. For this purpose our encounter with the project management tool of the Theory of Constraints has proved to be an even better success. We found out that we were able to use "The Critical Chain" and its buffers to establish better communications both within the project as well as outside it, in management reports and with our customers.

Today's common practice in the Wide Body Aircraft Directorate is to follow programs on a daily basis on the charts of the project chains. In Aircraft Maintenance the customer is involved as a resource in the process, by using the project chains charts in our daily meetings with the customers they have now better visibility of their influence on delivery dates and there by they share in the responsibility to each visit success. With this environment we find it easier to create a significant backlog and a better throughput.

When I read the Critical Chain I remind myself that there is much more to do which makes me sure we will do better in the future thanks to the tools of the Theory of Constraints.

Sincerely,
Joseph Reinherz
Wide Body Aircraft Director