Free Now and on Earth by Jim Thompson

twenty-five planes. A flap requires only one nose-cover, but it uses sixteen ribs of a certain type. So the unit number on the nose-cover is 1, but it is 16 on the rib.
    The release books are, at first glance, the ultimate in simplicity. The first, which is our major concern since we have not yet completed twenty-five planes, consists of twelve bills-of-material, one for each station. On the left side of the bill is the part number, its description, and the unit number. On the right, opposite each number, are twenty-five squares. When a part is received-say, forty-eight pieces of L-1054, which has a unit number of six-I draw a wavy line through eight of the squares opposite that number. When the forty-eight pieces are issued, I merely block the squares in.
    But-instead of getting forty-eight pieces I may get forty-nine. Then I must carry my wavy line through eight and one-sixth squares, and they are extremely tiny. If six were the maximum unit number, I might stay somewhere near straight, as far as this particular difficulty is concerned. But the unit number on some parts runs up to one hundred and sixty-four. And there's no way on God's green earth of splitting the squares that fine.
    I told Moon about it; and a lot of good that did.
    "Well," he said, feeling in his pocket for an apple, "a few pieces like that don't make much difference, Dilly. Just do the best you can."
    "But it's not just a few pieces," I said. "You've got seven releases-seven hundred and fifty ships-or a total of thirty bills of material for each assembly station. By the time you multiply even a very small error by thirty you're going to be in one hell of a mess."
    "Well," he said again, "what do you want to do about it?"
    I didn't know. "I'm just trying to explain why the records are off," I said. "I just didn't want you to think it was my fault."
    He climbed up on my stool on his knees and hurled the apple core over the fence. And far down the line, above the whine of unishears and the hoop-hoop of the rivet guns, there rose a yell.
    "Well, as long as it's only a few pieces, Dilly-"
    "But, Moon. I just got through saying-"
    "-we don't care."
    He sauntered off.
    That was in my third week here, and this is the end of my first month. And I'm beginning to catch on to things better. But it seems like the more I understand, the less I know-the more trouble I find.
    The design for our plane hasn't been frozen yet. Engineering changes are being made every day-almost every hour. And they're completely balling up our records system which is static in design. We're getting through dozens of parts that aren't on the bills of material. Some of them are effective on the first plane; some on the tenth; and so on. And I don't know how the hell to show the things. I don't know whether they're replacing other parts or whether they're outright additions.
    Moon says if they're not on the bills of material, why to hell with them; and I have let a lot of them slip. But that isn't going to do. The stockroom is getting filled with parts that we have no record on, and consequently when we make our issues we're not throwing them out. This is going to mean only one thing in the end. The Government will reject the planes because they do not meet specifications; and a certain stockroom bookkeeper is going to be on the spot.
    And, still, that isn't all.
    When a part is replaced or supplemented by another, the unit number on the original part is naturally changed. For example, where, at one time, seventy-five pieces of a part were required to complete twenty-five ships, we may now use only fifty. But-but what in the hell are you going to do when your records show that you've already issued more than enough of the first part for twenty-five planes? Where are you going to put the supplementary or additional parts?
    I can see where the difficulty is. The fact that we have issued parts for twenty-five planes doesn't necessarily mean that the assembly station has put them to productive