A customer owns a business that makes water filtration equipment and has just received a large order from an owner of several golf courses. The equipment is designed to remove impurities from wastewater allowing reuse on landscape without the threat of disease. He has asked you to visit his plant and observe his operation. At the appointed time you arrive and are given a tour at a small, but state of the art, plant that manufactures water filtration equipment that is known as the best in the world. You witness a lot of hand crafted product and skilled artisan labor, chat with seasoned employees that have been with the company for 20-years and note a very well trained, enthusiastic team-based workforce. During the tour you ascertain that the plant holds about 100 workers and generates $ 50 M in yearly revenue. You also notice that there is a lot of Work in Process at one particular machine, machine number 7, and there appears to be smooth flow before and after that point. After the tour you meet with the owner. He tells you that the plant has doubled in size over the last several years due to the Federal funds dedicated to environmental and clean-water projects. He is a chemist by background and education but is self-taught in leadership, project management and strategy. Here is the problem that he lays out for you in his words... “My workforce and business has doubled in the last couple of years. Up until now I could manage my work with my Day-Planner and my wife could run payroll, purchasing and accounts receivable off her MacBook. Now things are starting to slip. We are missing orders and not scheduling work properly. Inventory is piling up in the shop and not getting shipped. In order to get on track I need a decision whether I should purchase an IBM information management product that assists mid size plants such as mine with scheduling, purchasing, supply chain management, information systems and payroll. I can get a complete read out of status anytime I want. Every plant operation will have a workstation for tracking and updating the status of individual efforts that will roll up to a major presentation for me anytime I want. But my problem is that it is so expensive and I am a low risk person by nature. What do I do? Should I add resources with the new technology and hire more people? Or is it possible that I may have a less expensive and more effective solution? How can I be more certain that the technology is a good investment? Being an exceptional graduate of the USD you know one thing for certain…let the data drive you to the solution. So you ask to study the performance records of the operation so as to gain insight as to performance. You find the normal spreadsheets with financials, part orders and delivery schedules. There are some Gantt charts on the wall with schedules. But embedded in a pile of papers is the following chart…underneath is a note…IBM consultant says performance is going down. How would you advise the client?