Chapter 40: Thirty Nine

Things progressed smoothly. Well, as smoothly as a problem laced solution center, which is what her position was, can ever be. There were always issues that need to be resolved. Some things can be planned for, others are anticipated but never realized, and then there are those screwball problems that no one can anticipate. The latter is what gets dumped on Seulgi’s desk.

Seulgi has a printout, on the back side of her door that clients cannot see, that says “Lack of Planning on Your Part Does Not Constitute an Emergency on Mine.”  On a poster under it, it says: Use the Five P’s: Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. Someone added below that on a sticky: KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid. It seemed that the back side of her door is gaining sticky notes weekly. The more snide ones get taken down fairly quickly.

On one of the cabinets near her desk, someone hung a small poster of a kitten hanging from a tree with the caption “Hang in there, baby!” As of yet, no one has taken the blame/credit for putting it on there. But, Seulgi liked it anyway. She was torn between thanking the person and scolding them for breaking into her office. Seulgi narrowed her eyes in thought because it seemed like a Nayeon thing to do. But every time she was asked, you could almost see the halo above her head with the innocent look on her face. This automatically made her a suspect.

The mystery remained as of yet unsolved.

After the morning meeting was over, there was someone already waiting at her door with a piece of paper in hand.

“Hello, Gerald, how can I help you?”

“Good morning, Ma’am.” Seulgi’s smile congealed just slightly. She was only twenty eight, she was still too young to be a 'ma'am'.  “We have come across a problem that we just cannot find a solution to. So, we thought about asking for your advice. You see, there is one part on the schematic that looks like it should work, but once we put the device together, the specs are off just enough that the tolerances fail. You see when…”

The conversation with Gerald went on for nearly an hour. The problem was one that involved several parts that were being processed. One of them was too large to be brought into the office, so Seulgi went to the production floor to see what the man was talking about. So, she slapped on a hard hat and followed him to his area.

It turns out that one of the pivot points was out of specification. There was about half of the motion available that was necessary. It all came down to one part. It was not allowing the bend radius that was required. The guys on the floor showed her that it was supposed to bend at a one hundred twenty degree angle, but could only make eighty before the pin was sheared.

They repeated this a couple of times with several different parts and pieces to show that it was not a one-off error. It was a design flaw in the pin.  The guys got another pivot pin from another line that had nothing to do with the one they worked and the separate part worked as it should, so it was certainly the design flaw of the requested pin.

Seulgi had enough (unofficial) authority that she halted the production. She brought out her phone and took some pictures. She then set up a video capture program and asked them to recreate the pin shear on two of the designed pins. Then she did another video for the alternative one. She thanks the guys for all of their efforts.

She got the information about the other pin from the production line, who made it, what quantities were on hand, and how quickly they could get more.  Fortunately, the second line currently had an excess of pins. She asked to have someone take the excess pins over to the first line, ASAP.

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She went back to the first line, she found the manager and asked him to track every product, from the finished to where that station was. She also asked them to test the final products to see if it was a full design flaw or if perhaps they got a bad batch of pins.

Once problem solving things got into motion, she made a call to the department head and asked him to make her some time because she was on her way.  He complied because he knew that when she was in Business Mode, it was serious.  He cleared his next couple of meetings to give her the time it would probably need.

She and the line manager showed up in his office. Seulgi quickly and succinctly explained what happened. Then she brought out her phone and showed him the videos that she took of what happened. Then she showed the alternative pin in action. She explained the temporary halt on the line while they check the function on everything that had already passed inspection.

She then told him about how she got the excess pins from the second line and they were bringing them over as she spoke to him.

The line manager spoke up a few times to chime in or clarify a few things as well. He might be nervous about talking to someone much higher up the organizational chart, but he took strength from Seulgi being there and that the department head did not blow up at them or start assigning blame.

She suggested that once the alternative pins get there that they start replacing already finished parts and then keep working from there. She gave the head all of the information that she had on the pins, where to get them, and how to order more. The line manager also gave an approximate amount of pins they could expect from the second line and how quickly the replacement of the faulty parts could begin.

The department head’s face alternately darkened and lightened during the report. It was amazing how such a small thing could bring production down to a screeching halt.  But, as this was a potentially a literal life threatening problem, it needed to be done.

The Department head thanked Seulgi for her time and efforts and then prepared to leave with the line manager to head to the production floor.

She nodded and went back to her office where there were two more pieces of paper on her desk waiting for her to come back. She was pleased to know that one of them was a lunch order form, which was much easier to work on than the other paper.

On to the next crisis.

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