Ken Mack, plant manager for the AOne Company, was having a heated discussion with Jim Gould, the production and inventory control manager. Ken was getting tired of frantic calls from Ellen Uphouse, the marketing manager, concerning late orders for their customers and was once again after Jim to solve the problem. Some of the discussion points follow: JIM: Look, Ken, I'm not sure what more we can do. I've reexamined the EOQ (Economic Order Quantity lot size) values and all the reorder points for all our inventory for all our models, including all component levels and purchased items. I've implemented strict inventory control procedures to ensure our accuracy levels to at least 80%, and I've worked with the production people to make sure we are maximizing both labor efficiency and utilization of our equipment. The real problem is with those salespeople. We no sooner have a production run nicely going, and they change the order or add a new one. If they'd only leave us alone for a while and let us catch up with our current late order bank, we'd be okay. As it is, everyone is getting tired of order changes, expediting, and making everything into a crisis