My supervisor asked me to help her find the supplier of a part used in our production. She gave me
- a file containing suppliers' invoices
- 6 years worth of protocols to hunt through, hoping that somewhere this part will be mentioned amongst the other equipment
- 2 websites to shop for the part online in case I can't find the supplier, and
- a name card album where the supplier might jump out from the others
I spent the whole morning, exhausting all options and was feeling rather retarded. It was no different from searching for a needle in a haystack. So she tried asking other colleagues whether they had the slightest idea who the supplier is and the word 'derlin' came up. I think they actually meant delrin or something but well, I vaguely recall 'derlin' in one of the invoices so I've decided that that must be it. Finally we are getting somewhere. I managed to match his name and company on the invoice to his name card. We called up the company and little did we expect, he was actually somewhere in Baxter. See, we can't call his mobile coz there's NO reception in Baxter but we tried nevertheless. THE SERVICE PROVIDER IS UNAVAILABLE. PLEASE TRY AGAIN LATER. Now we were pretty sure he's somewhere near but we had no idea how he looked like or who he's here to visit. My brilliant idea: All visitors or contractors entering Baxter will have to register at the reception and name their host so we can follow that lead. Anyway, after all that hassle, we managed to track his location. But till now, we still don't know whether he's our supplier. Keeping my fingers crossed, I showed him the part and yipee, he's our guy!
My supervisor actually tried hunting for a long time but has no luck. She actually said that if I manage to find the supplier, she's gonna treat me to SakaeSushi (we are supposed to order in next week)!
The bottom line is, there was no link between that invoice and the part at all. One of the component is made of silicon, not derlin or delrin. I seriously had no idea how it happened.
