The Moving Chain

Chassis Number Two cleared the floor in seven hours and eighteen minutes.

Chassis Number Three took five hours and fifty-four.

Chassis Number Four stalled at five hours and forty-eight, because a grease cup at Station Seven stripped its threads and had to be backed out with an easy-out extractor while six men watched.

Ernest did not leave the hall for luncheon. He climbed the steel ladder to the overhead crane walkway, taking a position thirty feet above the floor where he could look straight down the four-hundred-yard spine of the plant.

From above, the failure modes were glaringly obvious.

He pulled a small leather notebook from his pocket, resting it against the steel handrail, his pencil moving without pause.

The men were moving too much.