Just in Time Training

One of the initiatives of modern business management is reducing the amount of time that inventory sits idle on the shelf to the absolute minimum. Unsold inventory represent unproductive money and acts as a sea anchor on profits. While you don't want to be out of stock (many times that results in the would-be customer changing their mind about buying from you, or, heaven forbid, buying at all—not good). So there is attention paid to finding the sweet spot where you run out of something just as the last customer snarfs up the last saleable piece of that product that you have, with the next customer magically not appearing until the replacements have arrived.

While it's a bit nerve wracking to resist reordering product before you absolutely need to, there's no doubt that profits can be enhanced if you get it right. This concept is styled just-in-time inventory management, and I was inspired to write about it because I just experienced Amtrak's version of this on a trip from St Paul to Raleigh.

First let me set the table. I'm on the road about a third of the time—doing a mixture of consulting (out-of-town firefighting for groups with a internal hot spot they're struggling to manage on their own), facilitation training (mostly via a two-year intensive training program I pioneered in 2003 for cadres of a dozen or so at a time), or attending conferences and board meetings (I presented at the national cohousing conference in early June, will attend a board meeting of the Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions in Yellow Springs OH next week, and will participate in the triennial gathering of the International Communal Studies Association in Hudson NY the week after that).

When I travel, my preference to go by train. Because I frequently work in or around Durham NC (which, for some reason is the hottest spot for community forming east of the Front Range on Colorado) I have taken this particular train itinerary many times:

Leg One: St Paul to Chicago on train #8 (the eastbound Empire Builder). This trains originates in Seattle and is due into St Paul at 7:43 am, due into Chicago at 3:55 pm. Yesterday the Empire Builder didn't arrive in St Paul until 10:31—2 hours and 48 minutes in arrears. Uh oh.

Leg Two: Chicago to Washington DC on train #30 (the eastbound Capitol Limited). This train originates in Chicago and was good to go for an on-time 6:40 pm departure but waited patiently to collect the folks (like me) who were frantically trying to board when the Empire Builder pulled into the station at 6:35 pm. Amazingly, everyone made the connection and we departed at 6:43 pm, only three minutes off schedule. Unfortunately we immediately coughed that up when we encountered heavy freight traffic in the mixmaster at the south end of Lake Michigan. We didn't pull into our first stop (South Bend) until 10:05 pm—56 minutes late. An inauspicious start. As the night wore on the delays increased and we didn't limp into DC until 2:49 pm—an hour and 44 minutes behind, affording us a leisurely 16 minutes to board #91 (easy peasy compared to our experience in Chicago).

Leg Three: DC to Raleigh on train #91 (the southbound Silver Star), due into Raleigh at 9:01 pm. This choo choo originates in New York and turned out to be late arriving, so we even had time to stand around on the platform (in the oppressive humidity that is July in DC). We pulled out at 3:22 pm, 17 minutes behind. We'll see how late I get to bed tonight.

According to the schedule there is 2.45 hours between trains in Chicago and exactly two hours between trains in DC. Two hours is the minimum that Amtrak requires in order to guarantee connections. That means that if you miss your connection they'll put you up overnight in a hotel so you can catch the same train the next day (or an earlier one if it's available). As it's a losing proposition for Amtrak to eating hotel bills, they very much want their trains to not be more than two hours late. 

The last two days (I'm composing this blog while still aboard the Silver Star: Leg Three) Amtrak cut this as close to the bone as possible, without hemorrhaging hotel rooms. In both Chicago and DC I never made it into the station. In each case the first train arrived late, but within 20 minutes of the scheduled departure for the connecting train, which was pulled into the adjacent track. I came off one train, walked across the platform, and boarded the second train: just in time.

While some people may experience such bang bang station minuets as exhilarating, it's excitement I'd rather do without. If I missed either train I would be struggling to get to the client before my scheduled start time: 9 am tomorrow morning. The uncertainty of my connections meant that some fraction of my mental bandwidth was given over to calculating potential ameliorations in the event that a connection was missed. While this is something I know how to do, it is not my favorite thing to dwell on.

I'd rather look out the window, or read a book. Oddly enough, I'm reading Paul Theroux's Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, (2008), a sequel to The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), where he chronicles his observations while repeating the itinerary he took 33 years before. Reading about train travel while experiencing my own. A box within a box.

It's one of the things that happens when I'm on the train—my connections runneth over, and there's just enough time to appreciate them.