Julie and I went out on our "date" that Saturday night, and we actually had a good time. It was nothing exotic. We went to a movie, we got a bite to eat afterwards, and for the heck of it we took a drive through the park on the way home. Very tame. But it was exactly what we needed. It was good just to relax with her. I admit that at first I felt kind of like we were back in high school or something. But, after a while, I decided that wasn't such a bad feeling. I brought her back to her parents at two in the morning, and we made out in the driveway until her old man turned on the porch light.
Since that night, we've continued to see each other. A couple of times last week, I made the drive up to see her. Once, we met halfway at a restaurant. I've been dragging myself to work in the morning, but with no complaints. We've had fun together.
By some unspoken agreement, neither of us talk about di- vorce or marriage. The subject has only come up once, which happened when we talked about the kids and agreed they should stay with Julie and her folks as soon as school ends. I tried then to push us into some answers, but the old argument syndrome be- gan to brew quickly, and I backed off to preserve the peace.
It's a strange state of limbo we're in. It almost feels the way it did before we got married and "settled down." Only now, we're both quite familiar to each other. And there is this storm which has gone south for a while, but which is sure to swing back some- day.
A soft tap at the door interrupts this meditation. I see Fran's face peeking around the edge of the door.
"Ted Spencer is outside," she says. "He says he needs to talk to you about something."
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"What about?"
Fran steps into the office and closes the door behind her. She quickly comes over to my desk and whispers to me.
"I don't know, but I heard on the grapevine that he had an argument with Ralph Nakamura about an hour ago," she says.
"Oh," I say. "Okay, thanks for the warning. Send him in."
A moment later Ted Spencer comes in. He looks mad. I ask him what's happening down in heat-treat.
He says, "Al, you've got to get that computer guy off my back."
"You mean Ralph? What have you got against him?"
"He's trying to turn me into some kind of clerk or some- thing," says Ted. "He's been coming around and asking all kinds of dumb questions. Now he wants me to keep some kind of spe- cial records on what happens in heat-treat."
"What kind of records?" I ask.
"I don't know... he wants me to keep a detailed log of everything that goes in and out of the furnaces... the times we put 'em in, the times we take 'em out, how much time between heats, all that stuff," says Ted. "And I've got too much to do to be bothered with all that. In addition to heat-treat, I've got three other work centers I'm responsible for."
"Why does he want this time log?" I ask.
"How should I know? I mean, we've already got enough paperwork to satisfy anybody, as far as I'm concerned," says Ted. "I think Ralph just wants to play games with numbers. If he's got the time for it, then fine, let him do it in his own department. I've got the productivity of my department to worry about."
Wanting to end this, I nod to him. "Okay, I hear you. Let me look into it."
"Will you keep him out of my area?" asks Ted.
"I'll let you know, Ted."
After he's gone, I have Fran track down Ralph Nakamura for me. What's puzzling me is that Ralph is not what you'd call an abrasive person, and yet he sure seems to have made Ted very upset.
"You wanted to see me?" asks Ralph from the door.
"Yeah, come on in and sit down," I say to him.
He seats himself in front of my desk.
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"So tell me what you did to light Ted Spencer's fuse," I say to him.
Ralph rolls his eyes and says, "All I wanted from him was to keep an accurate record of the actual times for each heat of parts in the furnace. I thought it was a simple enough request."
"What prompted you to ask him?"
"I had a couple of reasons," says Ralph. "One of them is that the data we have on heat-treat seems to be very inaccurate. And if what you say is true, that this operation is so vital to the plant, then it seems to me we ought to have valid statistics on it."
"What makes you think our data is so inaccurate?" I ask.
"Because after I saw the total on last week's shipments I was kind of bothered by something. A few days ago on my own, I did some projections of how many shipments we would actually be able to make last week based on the output of parts from the bottlenecks. According to those projections, we should have been able to do about eighteen to twenty shipments instead of twelve. The projections were so far off that I figured at first I must have made a big mistake. So I took a closer look, double-checked my math and couldn't find anything wrong. Then I saw that the estimates for the NCX-10 were within the ballpark. But for heat- treat, there was a big difference."
"And that's what made you think that the data base must be in error," I say.
"Right," he says. "So I went down to talk to Spencer. And, ah..."
"And what?"
"Well, I noticed some funny things were happening," he says. "He was kind of tight-lipped when I started asking him questions. Finally, I just happened to ask him when the parts that were being treated in the furnace at the moment were going to be finished. I thought I'd get a time on an actual heat by myself, just to see if we were close to the standard. He said the parts could come out at around 3 P.M. So I went away, and came back at three. But nobody was around. I waited for about ten minutes, then went to look for Ted. When I found him, he said he had the furnace helpers working somewhere else and they'd get around to unloading the furnace in a little while. I didn't think much about it. Then around 5:30, as I was leaving for the day, I de- cided I'd go by the furnace to ask what time the parts had actually come out. But the same parts were still in there."
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"Two- and-a-half hours after they c ould have come out, they hadn't been unloaded?" I ask.
"That's right," says Ralph. "So I found Sammy, the second- shift foreman down there, and asked him what was going on. He told me he was short-handed that night, and they'd get to it later. He said it didn't hurt the parts to stay in the furnace. While I was there, he shut off the burners, but I found out later that the parts didn't come out until about eight o'clock. I didn't mean to start trouble, but I'd thought if we recorded the actual times per heat, we'd at least have some realistic figures to use for estimating. You see, I asked some of the hourly people down there and they told me those kinds of delays happen a lot in heat-treat."
"No kidding," I say. "Ralph... I want you to take all the measurements down there that you need. Don't worry about Ted. And do the same thing on the NCX-10."
"Well, I'd like to, but it's kind of a chore," he says. "That's why I wanted Ted and the others just to jot down the times and all."
I say, "Okay, we'll take care of that. And, ah... thanks very much."
"You're welcome," he says.
"By the way, what was the other reason?" I ask him. "You mentioned you had more than one."
"Oh, well, it's probably not that important."
"No, tell me," I say.
"I don't really know if we can do it or not," says Ralph, "but it occurred to me we might find a way to use the bottlenecks to predict when we'll be able to ship an order."
I contemplate that possibility.
"Sounds interesting," I tell him. "Let me know what you come up with."
Bob Donovan's ears are on fire by the time I've finished tell- ing him what Ralph discovered about heat-treat on his own. I'm very upset about this. He's sitting in a chair in my office while I walk in circles in front of him.