VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [18]
One of the most important processes was curing, in which the resins would harden and become chemically stable. And for this to happen in a controlled manner required the plant’s autoclave. The Autoclave area sat at the bottom of the U, and it mainly consisted of a single piece of equipment – the autoclave itself. This was not the sort of “desktop” autoclave found in a college chemistry lab. This autoclave had been custom engineered for the Oakton plant. It was a huge orange-painted cylinder with a big round door on one end that looked somewhat like the door to a bank vault. On the far end was a smaller access door, and it looked like it had come from a submarine, with a round wheel in the center that would activate a number of latches. In the middle was a long cylinder – fifty-two feet in length, and twenty-two feet in diameter. Inside, the chamber could be compartmentalized to precisely handle a variety of small batches, or the compartments could be opened up to accommodate some very large composites. It could operate at a wide range of temperatures and pressures, and a complex array of tubing could introduce specialized atmospheres, such as pure nitrogen or an exotic mix of gases. Six full-time, well-paid technicians, two per shift, were permanently assigned to it, in addition to a supervisor and sometimes as many as six to eight other workers who helped set up, load, and unload this monster, which indeed they had named Godzilla.
As Murphy reached the Autoclave area, he immediately spotted Richy, the day-turn supervisor, who was seated at a computer console near Godzilla. He had a telephone cradled on his shoulder as he tapped the keyboard and worked the mouse with his hands. In a semicircle behind him stood half a dozen Autoclave workers, all of whom seemed to be waiting for Richy to get off the phone. Their expressions ranged from bewildered to bored.
“Uh-huh. Yes, sir, we’ll keep looking,” Richy said into the phone – then saw Murphy approaching. “Oh, hold on one second.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Murphy.
Richy put his hand tight over the mouthpiece and said, “It’s a guy in sales out on the West Coast. There’s some order that was supposed to ship last week, and now it’s late, and the customer’s all over them. He’s trying to track it down.”
Murphy wiggled his fingers to have Richy give him the phone.
“This is Murph Maguire here; who’s this, please? Oh! Hey, Garth! How come you’re callin’ so early? It must be the middle of the night out there in California. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I hear ya. No, sir, shouldn’t happen, but sometimes it does. Right. You gave the order number and whatnot to Richy? All right, sir, I’m on it. Someone will get back to you in about an hour with whatever we know. You take care, buddy.”
He hung up, looked at Richy, and asked, “So where’s his order number?”
“Right here,” said Richy, handing over a slip of paper. “But I can’t find what he needs. I don’t even see it listed on the schedule. And why he called me, I have no clue.”
“He’s called us enough to know that work-in-process backs up in Autoclave, that’s why,” said Murphy, dialing Jayro Pepps’s extension.
“Hey, Jayro, it’s Murph. I need you to look into something right away. Garth Quincy, that sales manager out on the West Coast, you know him? Well, he’s got red ants in the pants because of some order that’s missing in action. Richy here says it’s not even listed. I’ll give you the tracking numbers. Find out what you