I'd write it more like this:

DELETE FROM

dbo.tbItem

FROM

dbo.tbItem I

INNER JOIN dbo.tbProductionOrder PO

ON (I.POID = PO.POID)

WHERE

PO.PODescription LIKE '%00000%'

You could also encolse this is a while loop and delete records in smaller batches.

declare @recordstodelete int,

@recordsdeleted int;

set @recordstodelete = 5000;

while (@recordsdeleted is null)

or (@recordsdeleted <> 0)

begin -- while

DELETE TOP (@recordstodelete) FROM

dbo.tbItem

FROM

dbo.tbItem I

INNER JOIN dbo.tbProductionOrder PO

ON (I.POID = PO.POID)

WHERE

PO.PODescription LIKE '%00000%'

set @recordsdeleted = @@rowcount

-- BACKUP LOG ... -- a transaction log backup could be coded here to manage t-log size

end -- while

😎