"We're doing our best," he says.
"Bob, are we going to ship the order tonight or not?"
"Maybe."
I turn away and stand there looking at the NCX-10. Which is a lot to look at. It's a big hunk of equipment, our most expensive n/c machine. And it's painted a glossy, distinctive lavender. (Don't ask me why.) On one side is a control board filled with red, green, and amber lights, shiny toggle switches, a jet black keyboard, tape drives, and a computer display. It's a sexy-looking machine. And the focus of it all is the metal-working being done in the middle of it, where a vise holds a piece of steel. Shavings of metal are being sliced away by a cutting tool. A steady wash of turquoise lubricant splashes over the work and carries away the chips. At least the damn thing is working again.
We were lucky today. The damage wasn't as bad as we had first thought. But the service technician didn't start packing his tools until 4:30. By then, it was already second shift.
We held everybody in assembly on overtime, even though overtime is against current division policy. I don't know where we'll bury the expense, but we've to go get this order shipped tonight. I got four phone calls today just from our marketing manager, Johnny Jons. He too has been getting his ear chewed- from Peach, from his own sales people, and from the customer. We absolutely must ship this order tonight.
So I'm hoping nothing else goes wrong. As soon as each part
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is finished, it's individually carried over to where it's fitted into the subassembly. And as soon as that happens, the foreman over there is having each subassembly carted down to final assembly. You want to talk about efficiency? People hand-carrying things one at a time, back and forth... our output of parts per em- ployee must be ridiculous. It's crazy. In fact, I'm wondering, where did Bob get all the people?
I take a slow look around. There is hardly anybody working in the departments that don't have something to do with 41427. Donovan has stolen every body he could grab and put them all to work on this order. This is not the way it's supposed to be done.
But the order ships.
I glance at my watch. It's a few minutes past 11:00 P.M. We're on the shipping dock. The doors on the back of the tractor-trailer are being closed. The driver is climbing up into his seat. He revs the engine, releases the brakes, and eases out into the night.
I turn to Donovan. He turns to me.
"Congratulations," I tell him.
"Thanks, but don't ask me how we did it," he says.
"Okay, I won't. What do you say we find ourselves some dinner?"
For the first time all day, Donovan smiles. Way off in the distance, the truck shifts gears.
We take Donovan's car because it's closer. The first two places we try are closed. So then I tell Donovan just to follow my directions. We cross the river at 16th Street and drive down Bes- semer into South Flat until we get to the mill. Then I tell Dono- van to hang a right and we snake our way through the side streets. The houses back in there are built wall to wall, no yards, no grass, no trees. The streets are narrow and everyone parks in the streets, so it makes for some tedious maneuvering. But finally we pull up in front of Sednikk's Bar and Grill.
Donovan takes a look at the place and says, "You sure this is where we want to be?"
"Yeah, yeah. Come on. They've got the best burgers in town," I tell him.
Inside, we take a booth toward the rear. Maxine recognizes me and comes over to make a fuss. We talk for a minute and then Donovan and I order some burgers and fries and beer.
Donovan looks around and says, "How'd you know about this place?"
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I say, "Well, I had my first shot-and-a-beer over there at the bar. I think it was the third stool on the left, but it's been a while."
Donovan asks, "Did you start drinking late in life, or did you grow up in this town?"
"I grew up two blocks from here. My father owned a corner grocery store. My brother runs it today."
"I didn't know you were from Bearington," says Donovan.
"With all the transfers, it's taken me about fifteen years to get back here," I say.
The beers arrive.
Maxine says, "These two are on Joe."
She points to Joe Sednikk who stands behind the bar. Dono- van and I wave out thanks to him.
Donovan raises his glass, and says, "Here's to getting 41427 out the door."
"I'll drink to that," I say and clink my glass against his.
After a few swallows, Donovan looks much more relaxed. But I'm still thinking about what went on tonight.
"You know, we paid a hell of a price for that shipment," I say. "We lost a good machinist. There's the repair bill on the NCX-10. Plus the overtime."
"Plus the time we lost on the NCX-10 while it was down," adds Donovan. Then he says, "But you got to admit that once we got rolling, we really moved. I wish we could do that every day."
I laugh. "No thanks. I don't need days like this one."
"I don't mean we need Bill Peach to walk into the plant every day. But we did ship the order," says Donovan.
"I'm all for shipping orders, Bob, but not the way we did it tonight," I tell him.
"It went out the door, didn't it?"
"Yes, it did. But it was the way that it happened that we can't allow."
"I just saw what had to be done, put everybody to work on it, and the hell with the rules," he says.
"Bob, do you know what our efficiencies would look like if we ran the plant like that every day?" I ask. "We can't just dedi- cate the entire plant to one order at a time. The economies of scale would disappear. Our costs would go-well, they'd be even worse than they are now. We can't run the plant just by the seat- of-the-pants."
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Donovan becomes quiet. Finally he says, "Maybe I learned too many of the wrong things back when I was an expediter."
"Listen, you did a hell of a job today. I mean that. But we set policy for a purpose. You should know that. And let me tell you that Bill Peach, for all the trouble he caused to get one order shipped, would be back here pounding on our heads at the end of the month if we didn't manage the plant for efficiency."
He nods slowly, but then he asks, "So what do we do the next time this happens?"
I smile.
"Probably the same damn thing," I tell him. Then I turn and say, "Maxine, give us two more here, please. No, on second thought, we're going to save you a lot of walking. Make it a pitcher."
So we made it through today's crisis. We won. Just barely. And now that Donovan is gone and the effects of the alcohol are wearing off, I can't see what there was to celebrate. We managed to ship one very late order today. Whoopee.
The real issue is I've got a manufacturing plant on the criti- cal list. Peach has given it three months to live before he pulls the plug.
That means I have two, maybe three more monthly reports in which to change his mind. After that, the sequence of events will be that he'll go to corporate management and present the numbers. Everybody around the table will look at Granby. Granby will ask a couple of questions, look at the numbers one more time, and nod his head. And that will be it. Once the execu- tive decision has been made, there will be no changing it.
They'll give us time to finish our backlog. And then 600 peo- ple will head for the unemployment lines-where they will join their friends and former co-workers, the other 600 people whom we have already laid off.
And so the UniWare Division will drop out of yet another market in which it can't compete. Which means the world will no longer be able to buy any more of the fine products we can't make cheap enough or fast enough or good enough or some- thing enough to beat the Japanese. Or most anybody else out there for that matter. That's what makes us another fine division in the UniCo "family" of businesses (which has a record of earn- ings growth that looks like Kansas), and that's why we'll be just