gave up. I tried to work out who was the boss of whom by looking at job titles from pay stubs. Same problem. They weren’t up-to-date and no longer corresponded to existing jobs in the company. No wonder no one knows whom to ask for instructions, and no wonder certain people act as if they’re boss even when the real boss is there.”
Pierre raises an eyebrow, dismayed. “Just imagine being in the police force or the army and not knowing who was in charge of whom! Or imagine that there were several people in charge and that team missions weren’t clearly defined, even for the people who were meant to be carrying them out—” he breaks off as he hears a knock at the door. Hubert pops his head in, clearly very annoyed.
“I’m really sorry to bother you, Héloïse, but I need to speak with you at once.”
“Come in, Hubert. I’m with Pierre Chevalier, our total-quality consultant. I have to leave before four o’clock to be on time at the conservatory, so let’s talk right now. Mr. Chevalier has signed a confidentiality agreement.”
Hubert comes in and moves toward Pierre. The two tall men size each other up briefly and then shake hands.
Hubert says, “Good afternoon, and welcome. In fact, it’s good you’re here because the problem is in your area of expertise. You’ll be able to help us.”
Pierre fidgets slightly with discomfort, but Hubert doesn’t seem to notice as he turns toward Héloïse with a grave expression. “We’re continuing, slowly but surely, to lose orders from Saint-Nazaire, one after the other. This information is spreading around the shipyards like wildfire. Everybody now knows about the loss of your father, and this has already become a concern for our customers. I could have calmed the waters if we didn’t have this recurrent quality problem with the armchairs. Not just any armchairs, either, but the ones that were intended for the officers’ bar—and just when a new purchaser came on the scene, too! It is well known: a satisfied customer doesn’t say anything to anyone, but a dissatisfied customer will complain to at least ten prospects.”
Hubert pauses for breath. “When you’re hunting and the hounds come across a wounded animal, they will not let it go. Customers do just the opposite, but it ends up the same way—when their supplier goes through a bad patch, that’s exactly when they let the supplier go. At this rate, the revenue in our most profitable product line is going to collapse. The business is going to lose value at the very time we’re trying to sell it.”
He is deathly pale. Héloïse, pale also, offers him a chair. Pierre looks at both of them impassively. A heavy silence descends.
Finally, Pierre clears his throat and speaks up. “You say ‘everybody now knows.’ Whom do you mean by ‘everybody’?”
“The whole network in contact with the subcontractors in western France.” answers Hubert.
“And where do they build these boats that you equip?”
“Mainly in Saint-Nazaire and in the west.”
“The west?” Pierre presses on.
“Yes. You know, the western area of France, which includes Bretagne.”
“And what exactly is keeping you from outfitting boats that are made elsewhere?”
“Hmm ... well, ah, we’ve never really sought out other shipyards. Saint-Nazaire has always been enough for us,” says Hubert candidly.
The conversation trails off again. Pierre gets up, breaking the silence by saying that he would start his work right away by drawing up the organization chart. “It will take me the whole afternoon. I’ll bring it to you tomorrow.”
Hubert watches him go without saying anything. Héloïse doesn’t leave Hubert time to reflect. “Have you talked to Roger about the quality problem we’re having with the order that was to be sent today?”
“No.” Hubert sighs loudly. “What’s the problem this time?”
After leaving the somber office, Pierre starts for the shop floor with gusto. He is keen to see the products that are made by H. Rami and also to identify the “green”—the value-added factors that justify the company’s existence. In the wood shop, he finds Roger contorting himself inside a piece of furniture, probably in the process of fitting one of the parts. Pierre gestures to him to carry on; he will conduct the visit by himself.
From first glance the layout of the factory intrigues Pierre. The furniture being assembled is mostly made out of wood. The metal pieces are secondary parts.
“Why, then,” he wonders, “are the two parts of the overall shop floor, the wood shop and the metal shop, separated by a wall for nearly their entire length? And why is the shipping dock beside the wood shop located so close to the passageway that links the two workshops together? It requires the finished products to retrace their paths through the factory before exiting.”
Pierre strides toward the shipping dock. There, on a clipboard, he begins to draw up a diagram that shows the flow of products backward from the shipping dock through the factory. He uses different colors to indicate first the finished products—the furniture; then the wood; then the metal components—the machined parts that are fitted to the pieces of wood; and, finally, the raw material of which the components are made—the metal itself.
He moves quietly from one workstation to the next, greeting each of the workers with a nod and a smile, and they respond in kind. He watches them with great interest as they work. They can sense this, and some of them make more of an effort than usual, especially those who are working directly with the wood. They plane the surfaces and attach the small metal accessories with an economy of movement that amazes Pierre.
“It looks like the ‘red’ is between the various operations and not within the operations themselves,” he observes. Each time he moves from one workstation to the next, his diagram grows more complete. He makes a note of the small, strange prefabricated shed with its papered windows, at a corner of the storeroom. He notices the storeroom supervisor gives it a wide berth. When Pierre asks him if he might enter it, the storeroom supervisor says that it is up to his boss if a visit to “the coop” is permissible. But when Pierre asks him who the boss actually is, the answer he receives is so vague that Pierre makes a mental note to ask the question again later.
Once the diagram is finally finished, Pierre continues to look around, absorbing the atmosphere in order to notice any possible clues that might lead him to Thierry Ambi. He winds his way between workstations cluttered with wooden planks, partially assembled drawers, and rows of half-built armchairs. He navigates his way around a mountain of small school desks that are stacked one on top of another. He zigzags his way past piles of wooden planks and blocks his ears as he passes the screeching circular saw. He discreetly lifts the sheet of plastic that serves as a door to the painting booth, careful to avoid the half-opened cans of paint sitting on the ground. Pierre’s brow furrows as he watches workers struggle with the stacks of wood and batches of metal.
Like Héloïse, he too nearly loses his footing over the iron bars on the floor of the metal shop. He makes a mental note of the number of people who are moving about the shop or shifting the various materials from place to place. He realizes that, at any given moment, there are more of them than there are machine operators working with the raw materials or assembling the components. It is as though the lenses on his glasses turn alternately
