Factory Management In Our Times

[Excerpt from a book covering the approaches and personalities behind Dunwall's dominant whaling houses]
Seemingly willing to risk any industrial secrets he possesses, Bundry Rothwild has granted none other than the infamous Anton Sokolov liberal access to the Rothwild Slaughterhouse.
Sokolov is, of course, well known on several fronts. As Royal Physician, he served the late Empress Jessamine Kaldwin. The man - originally Tyvian - is a fixture in the art world as well, and his portraits are all the rage among the aristocracy. But Sokolov is of interest to Rothwild because of his work as an inventor and because of his associated role as Head of the Academy of Natural Philosophy.
No doubt, Bundry Rothwild believes that if Sokolov spends enough time in the guts of his factories, the brilliant man will continually make invaluable adjustments to the machinery there. Who knows what industrial improvements Rothwild has enjoyed since Sokolov began haunting his slaughterhouse? And since the Rothwild process involves keeping the whales alive for sometimes days as a means of extracting more oil from the beasts, Sokolov is keenly interested in visiting so that he may perform his obscure vivisection experiments. In very few places would this be possible, so the benefit to both men is obvious.
For those who have had the pleasure of touring Rothwild's facilities, a number of lessons can be taken away. The man runs a tight ship as it were, with the lowliest workers scantly ever complaining about their role in the scheme of things. The men and woman given the most menial labor are issued special cards, keyed to the mechanical locks granting access to the slaughterhouse. There is no other way in or out, and to lose the time card is to lose one's job.
Lording their position over the others at the top of the hierarchy are the Butchers. These men wield advanced cutting saws developed by Rothwild's top mechanists, working out the plans after hearing more utterances made by Sokolov as he commented sourly on the lesser devices used in previous years. The Butchers enjoy a special relationship with Mister Rothwild because, according to the company gossip, many of them were with him in years past, when he ran a whaling crew that was notorious across the Empire.
The pressure valves leading directly from the slaughterhouse to the Graves Refinery are a marvel of engineering, allowing the raw oil to travel in record time straight to plant where it is processed.
As a note of interest or dare I say even humor, the local fisherman claim that the waters outside the Rothwild Slaughterhouse produce the largest and tastiest hagfish. This is most likely due to the gut sewer leading from beneath the whales inside and delivering their organs and offal to the dark waters of the Wrenhaven beyond the slaughterhouse.
Category:Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall