pp. 78-79
September 24: Trouble around the Bend
In a good mood, Jeff Collins returned to his office, sat in his chair and leaned back. In the ten years he had been Chief Project Engineer for B&B Compressor Packaging, the meeting that had just taken place was the first time that a contractor had invited him to their kickoff meeting. He liked the way Sara had stressed the importance of working as a team and especially that she had given him an office in the Project Team building. Their formal interface meetings were another plus that would help prevent surprises. Jeff didn’t much care for having to work with that inexperienced package engineer, Ron Neuman, but he would have Edgar to go to if things really get bad. He and Edgar had worked on another job just a few years ago.

Jeff also liked Sara’s comment on communication, “Communication within this Team should be often and informal. If something happens, it should be communicated early so we can deal with it and not lose valuable time. Lastly, our communication should be candid. I don’t want to have people playing games at the expense of the Project’s success.” She had written on the board:

Communication

• Early
• Often
• Informal
• Candid

Jeff thought he would use some of this information at the next meeting with his Project Engineers.

Then a large envelope in his overfull in-box caught his attention. Could those be drawings from the compressor manufacturer? he thought to himself. They’d better be. They’re running late with the interface drawings. B&B had recently switched compressor manufacturer, at the request of the client, to avoid the quality problems they had been having. Jeff scanned the letter and found nothing out of the ordinary. It was a normal drawing transmittal letter. He slipped the CD into his computer and brought up the first sheet.

His eyes froze on a plan view of the inlet and outlet piping interface. He couldn’t believe it. He paled as he switched to the next sheet to get a different view. He muttered under his breath, “I can’t believe it!” These nozzles are coming out of the bottom of the machine, instead of the top, like I ordered. This could cost us the project’s schedule, the B&B profit and maybe my job. How could they mess up like that? I even gave them the change in writing with a drawing of that detail.

As he entered his boss’ office, Jeff felt torn between anger and apprehension, and both were unwelcome and unpleasant feelings on what had started out as a pretty good Friday afternoon. Chet was sitting at his desk with his permanent scowl etched on his face. Jeff explained the problem, then took a half step backward as he took the brunt of a string of expletives that had no particular target.

“We need to tell the project about this.” Jeff offered. “This could set their schedule back several months, depending on how far the compressor manufacturer has gotten.”

“We’re not going to tell them anything until we get to the bottom of this. One more compressor mess and the client will drop us like...” Chet’s words dropped off. “I’m not going to drag our dirty laundry out there until we have had some time to sort it and air it internally. Let me know as soon as you hear something else about this,” Chet said as Jeff left the office.

Jeff slammed his door and slumped into his chair to collect his thoughts. The apprehension melted away but there was enough anger left to light a fire. “I hate that guy!” he said aloud. Then he called Carlos, the Technical Manager for the compressor manufacturer, to set up a meeting.