Charlie Ortiz sat at his desk, wondering what he should do next. Ortiz was the operations manager for the Cachet sunscreen line at the McAllen, Texas, manufacturing plant of Aroma, Inc., $($Aroma$).$ The prior year, the senior vice president $($SVP$)$ of operations had issued a global directive to reduce costs and free up working capital. In response to this directive, the leadership team at the McAllen plant had worked endless hours to accomplish this goal. The consensus solution was to reduce the production quantities of each run, in order to reduce the inventory investment at the plant.

This solution was in line with the plant's Lean manufacturing initiative and would allow the plant to produce a wider variety of products and respond to changing customer demands.