The Friday pencil on a pouch line

The day procedure at the pouch line listed four defect codes for fill weight and seal. The night inspector, who had been on that line for eleven years, wrote a fifth mark in pencil: a short Thai note that meant the pouch had hissed at the corner when she pressed it, even though the weight was inside the limit. The day shift called those pouches good. She called them a leak waiting for the retort.

Why the photograph is taken at an angle

Pencil on a glossy sheet disappears under a flash held straight above the page. Arthit photographs those columns from the side, with the copper lamp low, so the groove of the pencil still shows. Even then, some Friday columns washed out. Those rows were marked unread in the folio. We did not ask the day supervisor to remember what the night inspector 'probably' meant.

Leave the gap in the room

At the briefing the unread Fridays were a blank band on the chart. The night inspector was on her day off. The quality manager wanted the band filled before his director arrived. We left it blank and moved the director's visit by a day so she could say which pouches had hissed. She pointed to a sealer jaw that had been nicked. The jaw was dressed. The fifth code was added to the procedure in the plant's words, not in ours.

A chart that fills every gap looks finished and lies. The Friday pencil is a reminder: the person who wrote the mark is part of the record. If they are not in the room, the mark can wait.