The Mech Touch

come to our third and newest production complex! You must be Mr.
Larkinson! ”

Ves shook hands with a graceful looking woman.
”My name is Melody Vaun, and I ’m the director of this complex.
Please follow me! ”

They walked towards one of the enclosed production facilities while Melody narrated the history of the company.
”Like many mech manufacturers, Vaun Industrial started out when my grandfather achieved a lot of success.
He excelled in both mech design and business, so his company grew fast. ”

What followed next sounded similar to the stories Ves had heard before.
Her grandfather became increasingly proficient at designing mechs, but his children proved to be a disappointment.
They all grew up learning how to design a mech and how to run a business, but they pretty much only cared about money.

This gave grandfather Vaun a lot of grief, and due to some incidents that Melody quickly glossed over, he died an early grave.

His death presented a crisis for the company, which had expanded to the point where they operated five whole production lines for mechs.
Without any new designs, Vaun would quickly fall into irrelevance.
His children frantically sought another mech designer to take over in their grandfather ’s stead.

”We managed to enter a number of short-term contracts with various people and organizations that need things done.
They never lasted more than a year or two, but it kept our company afloat. ”

Vaun Industrial never managed to find a mech designer good enough to produce as much sales as their late founder.
A few years passed while the heirs kept accepting contracts, until they suddenly realized that Vaun Industrial didn ’t need to appoint another lead designer to survive as a business.

”When times became hard, we started cutting costs. ” Melody spoke. ”We eventually became quite good at efficient mass production, to the extent that our company was able to reinvest our profits into expanding our production line. ”

Fifty years later, Vaun Industrial ended up as a large manufacturer of mechs and other heavy gear that worked with multiple mech designers every year.
Melody bragged that the secret to their success lay in their pursuit of efficiency.

”Our production lines are some of the fastest on Bentheim. ” She claimed, though Ves doubted their veracity.
”We ’re able to maintain some of the highest rates of production. ”

”What about defects? ”

”They ’re barely noticeable.
You just reminded me of their existence. ”

They finally reached the closest facility.
After Ves went through a thorough inspection, he followed Melody inside a cavernous white hall filled with lots of white production equipment.

He immediately turned his gaze to the 3D printers, which appeared to be smaller but faster than the Dortmund in his own workshop.
Ves immediately noticed that all of the machines had been dedicated to fabricating the same components over and over again.

Melody walked over to the nearest machine.
The printer worked so hard it emanated a lot of steam.
”We utilize a batch production system where we fabricate enough parts to assemble hundreds of mechs at a time.
These printers are highly efficient and self-sufficient at their jobs.
They detect most defects on their own and scrap their current progress is the deviation is severe enough to impact the quality of the end product. ”

That meant that Vaun retained the components with only minor deviations.
Ves would have tossed them out regardless, but Vaun obviously thought differently.

After admiring the largely automated fabrication process, they moved on to the assembly area.
Large amounts of half-built mechs stood at a row.
Parts were being lifted into place by a combination of advanced anti-grav technology.
This prevented the assembly area from being cluttered by a sea of lifter bots.

”Similar to our fabrication process, our assembly process takes advantage of the automation processes that we ’ve developed in-house.
Incidents are rare enough that only a single person is needed to look over the assembly of thirty mechs at once. ”

”What kind of incidents can happen? ”

”Oh, you know, screw ups that our bots have difficulty processing. ” She explained.
”Sometimes, the bots mix up the parts for one model for another.
Other times, the anti-grav system acts up and drops a couple of components.
This doesn ’t happen more than a few times a year, so don ’t worry about our capabilities.
We never fail to meet our production targets. ”

Ves wanted to talk with some of the mech technicians that worked on the factory floor, but Melody strongly denied his request.
He frowned at her.
”Why can ’t I have a simple talk with them? ”

”Our apologies, Mr.
Larkinson, but we ’ve already been generous to you by allowing you to take a look.
Much of our success lies in our proprietary methods and we can ’t insure that our technical staff will know what to say and what to withhold.
In order to maintain our trade secrets, it ’s company policy to never let anyone speak with our experts. ”

As an apology, Melody guided him to an office in which he could view a variety of different designs they produced over the years.
Many of the designs came from promising Apprentice Mech Designers or newly advanced Journeyman Mech Designers who hadn ’t expanded their own facilities yet.

Ves didn ’t doubt Vaun ’s competence as a mech manufacturer.
They worked with so many different designs that they required no adjustment time to master the production of a new design.

Vaun ran a tight ship.
They could be trusted to take his design and produce hundreds of bronze label Blackbeaks without any sweat.
Out of the three possible candidates to entrust his Blackbeak design, partnering with Vaun appeared to be the least riskiest option.

He still disliked them, though.
Beyond the disconcerting level of automation, Ves hadn ’t been allowed to talk with the mech technicians or supervisors who operated the production equipment.
The only person from Vaun he really talked to was Melody Vaun, who mainly tooted her company ’s horn.

Mentally, he already crossed them out of consideration.
He ’d probably have to argue against the entire board for refusing to work with Vaun.
Hopefully, the other two mech manufacturers offered something better.