Bad Day

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

jack barnes

Member
Joined
Aug 5, 2005
Messages
371
Location
Springfield, Ma.
Well I'm going to have to cut back on this pen turning hobbie. Yesterday was not a good day at work the Boss held a meeting with the production workers. The company is cutting back because the sales is off by 3%. Guess how they are going to do this. What they did is cut everyone by 12 hours, cutting shift differents, not filling 6 opening, and here is the kicker reschuled our work shifts and added 2 shifts by operating the machines with 2 people instead of the 3 and 4 needed. The funniest comment I heard from some of the younger workers was it's Bush's fault.

Jack
 
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
its the classic do more with less. They didn't by chance have a management consulting firm advising leading companies on issues of strategy, organization, technology, and operations come in, one named McKinsey?

Southwest Airlines had them come in. Cost them 5 million for the consulting, the group BS'd all the employees saying we want to listen to your ideas and help using your input. Then they sat behind closed doors and looked at numbers and did their organization based on that. Due to this groups input is how there was not enough people working the flight I got my back hurt on.

They had 2 classic ideas on the ramp: 1) only use 3 carts around the beltloader to unload. Well that is all good, except you can only put 45 bags per cart usually and when you have 120 local bags come off and 1200lbs of freight and 7 different transfer cities you are at a loss for space. I was being observed one day by 2 of their college goofs and when the 3 carts were full, I turned around and asked them, "Do I leave the rest on the plane until it comes back and we can get 3 more carts?"

2) They decided that there should be 3 man teams for every 4 gates to work the planes. So one team per plane. We asked them what about when that 4th gate comes in. They said "according to the schedule, there should never be 4 planes down at the same time". Who all here flies, do delays mean anything? Yeah there is perfect weather across the country and nothing ever comes in late or leaves late.


If this group ever comes to a place near you, run and hide.
 
Originally posted by MLKWoodWorking
<br />So Jack are you saying that you do not think that the current administration has anything to do with the state of our economy?
Click to expand...

This is the best way I know of to get Jeff to lock this thread down. Please read this page. [;)]

That's too bad, Jack. We also were told the "do more with less" thing some years back. Would you believe that they recently came back and told us that it doesn't work? You cannot actually do more with less. Wow, I'da never guessed. Now they are pushing the "Lean" thing, which is actually quite good... if it is actually practiced. The idea is to cut waste, from anywhere possible. We've been able to identify a number of process "steps" where there was actually no value added and removing these makes a big difference. Just tour the Harley plant in KC and talk to them about it. They started it almost 10 years ago and it has made a huge difference.
 
Originally posted by MLKWoodWorking
<br />So Jack are you saying that you do not think that the current administration has anything to do with the state of our economy?
Click to expand...

Folks, keep the politics OUT of this thread and OFF of IAP and we will be just fine. Politics will NOT be tolerated here. Thanks for your cooperation.

Curtis O. Seebeck
IAP Moderator
 
Originally posted by alamocdc
<br />
Originally posted by MLKWoodWorking
<br />So Jack are you saying that you do not think that the current administration has anything to do with the state of our economy?
Click to expand...

This is the best way I know of to get Jeff to lock this thread down. Please read this page. [;)]

That's too bad, Jack. We also were told the "do more with less" thing some years back. Would you believe that they recently came back and told us that it doesn't work? You cannot actually do more with less. Wow, I'da never guessed. Now they are pushing the "Lean" thing, which is actually quite good... if it is actually practiced. The idea is to cut waste, from anywhere possible. We've been able to identify a number of process "steps" where there was actually no value added and removing these makes a big difference. Just tour the Harley plant in KC and talk to them about it. They started it almost 10 years ago and it has made a huge difference.
Click to expand...

Hey Bill,

I work as a Six Sigma Black Belt and Lean Expert. It works well if it is supportred from the Top down. I have been in this position for 12 years now, Lean projects I work on typically take 3-6 months to implement and usually save 30-50% in cycle time reductions and related labour time and material costs per cycle, making our products more competative, repeatable and reproducable with higher quality. In our last project we took a 42 day process down to 3 days, it was a repair and overhaul process, of those 42 days 6 hours was the actual repair time, in the new 3 day cycle it is still 6 hours .... the waste was in the waiting for approvals, quotes etc, waiting waiting waiting....cutting out labour is not typical of the reasons why we waste, it is a symptom of a process that does not work and we add labour to make up for inefficent systems...so addressing the problems of waiting times and improving information flow and availability is key. The other issue is not addressing teh full "Value STream", we often sub optimize a portion of a process and just move the problem from point A to point B, unless you work the whole process from the Receiveing Dock to Shipping you have not saved anything for yourself..... The HD model as you mention is a classic.

My current project involves getting a design process that is currently 48 months down to 18 months....oh I love working with engineers![8D]
 
I saw on the news Harley is shutting down for a week, unpaid furlow for employees and then Winobago has seen its first decline in a long time. I hope we never see amarket when they start to lay off penmakers [:D]
 
I hadn't heard that, Anthony. They really amped up production in the last year or so to meet the demands of us boomers, so they may have amped up a bit too much. That and the sagging economy thanks to runaway corporate greed ( read in part, ridulous gas prices).

Thanks pretty cool, Jim. I went to a Lean Management course in KC a few years ago and learned about the Six Sigma and Lean practices there. The folks at the Harley plant were involved with the class because the company providing the instruction had implemented the practices being taught some years before. I learned quite a lot and within the next few years we started getting more heavily into it.
 
In no way did I intend to have this be about politics, I'm sorry if it came off that way. What I beleive my be different then some one else, we not all, tend to over spend and when things get tight blame someone for it. That is all that I was saying. So again I'm sorry if it came off different.

Jack
 
Jack, sorry to hear about your cut back. I guess I'm one of the lucky people who doesn't HAVE to work, not because I don't want to[:(] I WILL say this, don't give up on your hobby even if you have to cut back on it. I've had alot of "hobbies" and penturning is the only one I have found that gives a person entertainment, pride, therapy and stress release plus provide a little income, (I make enough to buys more supplies). Good Luck!
 
I'm not giving up on pen turning it's just I normally spend $50 to $75 a week on different tools and pen supplies.
My finances are in order and I'm going to retire in a couple years. My wife and I already bought and paid for a place in New Mexico. I just feel for some of the people I work with as Christmas coming up.

Jack
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom