Ignoring plant floor expertise - worst stories 1

[tomwalz]

Not listening to the people on the plant floor

Just looking to swap stories. Here’s my favorite.

I was once called into a plant because a machine wasn’t working consistently. It was a very ‘clever’ design. There was a cylinder powered by bottled gas (I think Argon) then the escaping gas created an atmosphere for brazing.

I was not allowed to talk to anyone on the plant floor without a representative of both management and the union standing there. Then all questions had to be approved before I could ask the operator.

We went over a day with no results. On the morning of the second day we were going for coffee. One of the operators sort of slid up next to me and whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “They make us use the tank until it is empty. When the pressure drops everything goes to hell.” Then he sort of drifted away so no one would see him talking to me.

He was right, of course. Management expected to get the tank down to the tare weight (no gas at all in it) before they shipped it back.

Tom

 

[ornerynorsk]

Ah, yes. Management and Union. The two evil scourges of the earth. No joke intended !!!

 

[RobWard]

Short one this, and not very impressive, but has just happened, and we've all been there.

Boss: "Can you fix this pallet truck"
Me: "Why? What's wrong?"
Boss: "It's leaking oil everywhere."
Me: "Seal's gone. Have you been leaving it in the oven after I told you not to because the seals would go?"
Boss: "...........yes."


Hmmmmm. Guess which "little job" isn't high on my list of priorities. "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go past." Douglas Adams

 

[kenvlach]

My co. provides EN (electroless nickel) plating. One customer claimed that our postplate adhesion bake on a large batch of Al 6061 molds caused warping. Hadn't happened before. The molds are machined from thick, cast tooling plate. I did a rough calculation of warping due to residual stress if final machined w/o stress relief, then visited customer. QA called in engineering. They already knew the answer (more precisely, too): Their efficiency-expert management had speeded up production by eliminating the stress relief bake between rough and final machining! Both Engineering & QA had been overruled on the decision. So, they produced parts faster, but all were defective.

 

[MadMango]

Our "new" Cost Reduction group was looking into changing the material of some parts to reduce cost. Without asking any further questions, or checking with engineering, they changed some parts from SS 304 to CRS1018, since the CRS was cheaper per pound and the parts weren't structual. The parts now needed to have a protective coating... ok, we have powder coating ability, we'll powder coat them.

Problem 1: The parts changed were appearance parts, hence the SS 304 specification.

Problem 2: CRS nominal thickness varied from SS 304 (.150 vs .156).

Problem 3: Powder Coating not only added additional thickness to the parts, but didn't meet the customers satifaction (went from polished 304 to black powder coated CRS).

We had problems during assembly due to the additional thickness, then all products were rejected by the customer. I never heard of the final "cost savings" but you can imagine how much the cost overrun was. To top everything else off, this change was conducted under the premiss that it could be a Class 4 ECO, since the only thing "really changed" was the material call out on the drawing & BOM and adding paint to the routings. This was a case of not even asking, let alone ignoring "floor expertise". "The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

 

[boo1]

It seams that you are confusing them with facts!

 

[smcadman]

We were building continuous feed roasters (for peanuts and such, conveyer fed). Management decided to save money by using 18 ga. S.S. instead of the heavier gauges we used on previous ovens. This thing is about 10 ft tall, 16 ft. long, and 6 ft. wide. Needless to say the heat warped the walls and the doors and it had to be reskinned and heavier doors were used.
Of course, the shop owner didn't want to hear any excuses and still griped (YELLED) about the oven not being done on time. It was the designers fault, but the shop floor was getting the brunt of the yelling.

Flores

 

[sancat]

Just happened,

Big company 1 gets a contract from Big Company 2 to sell them several electronic sensors. These sensors have to be integrated with conveyor belts, which have to be custom made for each line. Big company 1 buys the equipment, and contracts us to build the conveyors and install them at Big Company 2 facilities. Customatization and Big Company 2 internal politics cause some problems, but eventually everything is solved.

Big Company 1 gets a new contract, now from Big Company 3. We think, wow, now we have the experience, we get the contract. Wrong. Big company 1 chooses to buy the electronic equipment already integrated with the conveyors even though our package price was 20% below the integrated solution. The reason? They say that there were problems with Big Company 2. We argue that all problems were solved and that this approach doesn’t leave room for modifications; they say that no customatization is needed this time.

Big Company 1 tries to install the equipments on big company 3 facilities. Motors positions are wrong, conveyors measures don’t fit, and there is a sloped conveyor, which should be horizontal. Big Company 1 asks us to modify, and fix, as Big Company 3 requires. We tell Big Company 1 that a 20% seems fine to modify. It is not the money, it is the fact that they tried to fxxk us … we told you so, you didn’t listen… It just feels fine…

sancat

 

[Tofflemire]

Still living the nightmare...

We had a large contract, one of the largest for the our company, the production manager complained that this one process was too time consuming to build and wanted it changed. I argued not to change but got over ruled by 3 to 1 vote. I have to agree the new and improved way was easier, but here is the real kicker. This product is air lauched into water, the process now breaks and fails 80% of the product, we still are trying to fix this problem and the bill is in the 10's of thousands $.

Tofflemire