VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [17]
“How’s our WEX-100? I bet we got a lifetime supply,” said Murphy.
“Pretty close. And the max recommended cold storage is thirty-six months.”
Murphy chuckled with disdain and said, “So we don’t have what we do need, and we’ve got a multiyear inventory of what we don’t. Dandy. Anything else?”
“Oh, I could go on and on,” said Jayro, “but the big thing–”
“Is the Navy job. Just tell me.”
“Hairline cracks.”
Murphy wavered as if he had just been tagged by a left hook.
“All of it?” Murphy asked.
“Some of it,” said Jayro. “Maybe less than four percent. But now we have to check every last one. Can’t ship. Unless you want to … you know.”
“No. Absolutely not. C’mon, Jayro! You know me better than that! I would never do that, especially not to the Navy.”
“Well, that order is already a month late. There are rumors that phone calls have been made to and from high places. Admirals calling big muckety-mucks. And when big muckety-mucks get called–”
“Yes, Jayro, I am aware of all that. But I am not going to ship bad product. Shoot, if only they would offer me early retirement with full benefits. At least that would solve my problem. You know, it doesn’t have to be a gold parachute; it could be a bronze parachute.”
“It might be a lead parachute if you can’t solve this,” said Jayro.
“What we need – and what we can’t get – is to have one of them Geniuses in Rockville come down here and help us figure this one out.”
Murphy was referring of course to Hi-T’s Formulation & Design unit, based in Rockville, Maryland, outside Washington, D.C. And “Geniuses” was an apt, yet derisive term for the chemists and other scientists who worked there, many of whom were, if not geniuses, extremely smart and well-educated. F&D, as it was often called, was a separate profit center for Hi-T – indeed, a separate business – working in the intellectual realm and performing very sophisticated materials research and engineering.
“I mean, this cracking problem has got me,” Murphy went on. “Is it something in the specs they’re giving us? Is it something we’re doing? I don’t know. But we’re having to run those V-series jobs four and five times to get enough perfect ones to ship.”
“Well, the Geniuses don’t want to get their fingernails dirty. You know that.”
Murphy nodded with grimness. He suddenly set down his coffee mug, turned away from Jayro, and began walking off.
“Yo, Murph!” called Jayro. “Lunch?”
“Eleven thirty. Usual place,” said Murph. “And you better o’ brought the good stuff!”
Jayro grinned, one side of his lips rising higher than the other, and the appearance of his teeth was not unlike a quarter moon shining bright in a midnight sky.
The Oakton Plant was generally laid out as a big U. Materials came in via one leg of the U – with resins going into the Cooler, and “dry” materials going into bins and onto shelves in various storerooms, where they waited until they were needed. When a work order was authorized, the materials were released – that is, taken by forklift or hand cart or, if in bulk liquid form, often by pipe and hose – to where they would begin the journey to being finished products. If all went well, and they didn’t end up in the Dumpster outside as scrap, they would complete the journey in Shipping, which was at the far end of the other leg of the U.
Dead center between the uprights of the U was the mold-and-tool shop – known to everyone as the M/T Shop – which was a factory within a factory, with computer-controlled machines creating the molds and tooling that would shape or form whatever had to be made. From there were a number of stages and processes grouped in areas such as the M57 Line, Laminating, Autoclave, Coatings, Finishing, Packaging, each of these transforming the original materials into something of greater