VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [19]
When he got off the phone, Murphy turned to the assembled workforce. “Don’t y’all have setups to do? You know my rule. I do not want Godzilla down for even a minute more than necessary.”
“Mr. Maguire,” said one of them, “that’s the problem. We don’t know what we’re supposed to set up next.”
“Okay, just give us a minute,” said Murphy, “and all will be made clear.”
As the Autoclave workers dispersed, Murphy grabbed a swivel chair from nearby, rolled it into place next to Richy, and sat down. Using the mouse, Richy was scrolling through the open work orders.
“Hell of a Monday,” Murphy muttered. “Now, what’s the confusion here?”
“According to WING, we’re supposed to be doing this series,” said Richy, pointing to a range of orders on the computer screen, “but I know that doesn’t make any sense. Our next soak, we’d be running Godzilla half empty. And then these later soaks, the quantities are too big. They’re not all going to fit, and they won’t reach Shipping in time to go on the truck.”
“You’re right,” said Murphy. “I’m very glad you spotted that. All right, forget what this stupid WING software says we ought to be doing. We’ll do a manual work-order entry, and you’ll have to update the records. Now, how much time do we have?”
Richy glanced at the clock and said, “The current soak will end in thirty-six minutes.”
“All right,” said Murphy, “no time to waste. Let’s have a look-see …”
He took the mouse from under Richy’s hand and began to click and scroll and scrutinize what appeared on the screen. He did most of the math in his head, but from time to time reached for his pocket calculator to double-check it.
“Okay,” Murph said finally, pointing to the screen. “Soon as you got the ’Zilla purged, you load in these four, then this one … and these two. Gang ’em all together. Got that? Then next soak, we’ll do these five.”
Richy was quickly scribbling the numbers and letters.
“Are you sure, Murph? Those five, they’re all different specs,” said Richy.
“Of course they’re different! The specs were written by the Geniuses! They sit in their pretty glass tower up there on the Beltway and whatever number happens to pop up on their computer screens, that’s what they specify! They don’t even talk to themselves half the time, never mind the likes of us! Anyway, these four are similar enough that we can gang ’em. I know what we can get away with. It’ll work.”
“All right, you’re the boss,” said Richy, and he turned and fired off instructions to the setup workers. “Git on it! Y’all got thirty-one minutes to do these setups! Move!”
Murphy and Richy went over the rest of the day’s schedule for Godzilla. Then, satisfied that Richy understood the priorities, he patted his supervisor on the shoulder and began to stroll at a pace neither fast nor slow back along the main aisle. At every work center there was a WING terminal, and on the screens of many of them flashed a big red triangle with a question mark in the middle. Murphy ignored all flashing triangles and simply looked at what the people and their equipment were actually doing. A firm believer in MBWA – Management By Walking Around – Murphy knew almost every worker on sight, but there was one worker, a machine operator, whom he did not recognize. Murphy walked over to him and read the name on the operator’s badge.
“Bobby? Hi. I’m Mr. Maguire, the production manager.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir.”
“You’re one of the new hires, aren’t you?”
“Started last week.”
“Uh-huh. What are you working on?”
Bobby pointed to a line on the screen of the WING terminal, and said, “This lot right here.”
“And why is that?”
“Because, well, that’s what the computer told me to do.”
“Shut that machine down,” said Murphy.
“Excuse me?”
“I said, shut it down!”
Bobby pressed a red button on the control panel and the machine stopped. Almost immediately, a red triangle with a question mark popped onto the screen of the WING terminal.
“Put