The Delicate Crunch of Marshmallows

“Moving on, the next line has a supervision factor,” Raul continued. “We had a 25 percent advantage because we needed very little supervisory time. Nobody had to be told to do their job. The final two lines are wild-assed guesses to fudge the results to match the overall measurements, but they seem reasonable. These people were so fired up, and believed so much in what they were doing, I figure we had a hell of an advantage right there. I figure our cobby tools and ultra-raw materials pulled us back to the final result. I should probably have factors in there for no booze, no drugs, no TV, no pesky sales reps, no kids getting sick at school, but it would be another fudge factor on top of enthusiasm, and I’d have to counter it with an even more pessimistic assessment of our tools. The point is, you can see where the productivity could come from. The numbers are realistic.”

Erica hit a key to back the display up to the earlier graph. “If I read this correctly, now they’ve dropped to a total of one-point-four, despite still working about the same number of hours?”

Raul nodded.

Erica pointed to the first drop. “Not hard to figure what caused this. That’s when our sponsors started getting antsy, and demanded that I show them some results they could point to. Up to that point, we were still building the facility, not the ship. They complained that we weren’t producing, yet this shows we were really cranking it out. So I screwed around with the priorities and started building the ship.”

Raul nodded again.

Erica’s finger slid down the graph to the downward inflection in the middle. “Also not hard to figure out what happened here. That’s when they imposed Goal-Oriented Milestone Measured Management on us.” Raul nodded once more. “Exactly. At that point, all the team leaders effectively became unproductive supervisors who’s primary duty was to monitor progress against the Go-Triple-M timetable. That in itself accounts for about a 20 percent drop in productivity. It also set a schedule that had nothing to do with realistic expectations or capacity.”

Erica sighed. “And I went along with it, like an idiot. I changed priorities again. In fact, I’ve been doing it almost daily. The work that suffered was the building of jigs, specialized manufacturing equipment for things we needed in quantity, learning to cast that damned finicky foam in large sections, and other things which would pay off a little further down the road. To meet the new schedule we had to use the toolmaker’s equipment we brought up here with us as production equipment. Instead of making bigger and faster fabricators, we overloaded the little ones making bolts and widgets. Instead of building purpose-built chemical plants for bulk organics, we used the general purpose synthesizers we were supposed to reserve for speciality stuff. Down went the curve.”

“Yep,” Raul added. “All the while we were dipping into our stocks of replacement parts at an alarming rate. Carbide and diamond tips were being broken, and we hadn’t built the facility to make boron nitride chips for replacement tools. Bearings were wearing out. Indicators were failing. When a machine was trashed too badly to be used, the load shifted to the ones that remained.”

Erica stared at the screen. At last she said, “Mr. Otoya, I apologize. You tried to warn me about this. I didn’t listen. I don’t know what I can do to fix this screwed-up mess I’ve made, but, I promise, there will be some changes.”

Erica got up and trudged toward the hatch. Raul stared after her. When she was out of earshot, he turned back to his computer. “Of course, changes are the whole freaking problem,” he mumbled to himself.

Erica Thompson paced back and forth in the cramped confines of her office, stopping periodically to examine the screen of her computer. “Come on,” she muttered. “How long does a freedom of information order take anyway?” She checked her watch. Even allowing for the lengthy transmission delay, the inquiry should have gone through hours ago.

The computer beeped, and she dove for it, hitting the keys before she was even in her seat. She paged through the correspondence files and reports eagerly, stopping occasionally to read parts in detail. “The scumbags,” she mumbled on the average of once a minute.

Buzz Santi knocked, thought he heard a faint reply, and entered Erica’s darkened office. A single desk light was focussed on the only wall decoration, a crude and simple carving of a bearded elfish face in a small piece of oak branch. Erica Thompson had her work-seat reclined, and her eyes were closed.

Buzz began backing toward the hatch, when Erica stirred. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were taking a nap,” he whispered.

“Oh, no!” Erica exclaimed, waving him back in. “Just lost in thought. Bright lights make me tired after a while, and the dark clears my head. Come in.”

“We were worried about you, Erica,” Buzz offered. “You’ve hardly been seen out of your office for three days now.”