I appreciate that my views are for some controversial, so I thought it may be thought provoking to highlight some of things I see that indicate that a manufacturing process Is not well controlled.
Firstly there is never any excuse or reason irrespective of the age of the machine for having swarf or punched out teeth of a saw landing on the floor. A simply fabricated shoot can always be created to divert stuff into a receptacle. May sound trivial, but for a high quality product you need a clean, tidy and well organised production facility. Rubbish on the floor invariably means rubbish out of the door. No one likes working in a mess.
The process of making a saw is methodical, each step can be defined and timed. From this step by step chart the work required can be divided up amongst a number of work stations to achieve a equal amount of work being carried out by each operator and each operator working constantly and not having to wait for work from the previous operation. There is no investment required to do this. Each minute costs money and needs to be used wisely and effectively. The time taken to make a saw can then be calculated, this is known as the Tackt time.
The work stations could be moved as close together as possible, to eliminate the need to either store parts between processes and to reduce the amount of movement or travel they have to go through as the work is completed. Again, no real cost involved.
The operators would normally rotate during the day through each process to relieve boredom and also to allow them to use different muscles. Not only does this lead to less tiring work but also makes them more efficient and effective.
Layout tools for the saw blanks world lead to less metal being wasted when the saw blanks are being cut out. The steel coil is not optimised to the blank size again creating excessive waste.
The drill for the handle just needs a multiplying head adding so that it can drill all of the saw bolt homes at once with the correct spacing every time. A simply jig added to the drill table would ensure the correct location. An air or electric screw driver with torque control would speed up adding the nuts to the saw bolts.
Give the place a lick of white paint, clean the Windows to let in more natural light (don't need as many lights), define locations for where parts are stored, place them if possible within reach of the operator.
This type of re-lay out and organisation sounds simple and is, best of all it costs almost nothing. However from the video of the place it would not be hard to reduce the labour time taken to make a saw by half. This would not involve replacing any of the ancient machines or reduce the skill of the workers. But, at a guess the cost of the saw is probably 15% material and 85% labour (all of the machines will have been fully depreciated), so for the same retail price they can either increase their profits, or alternatively reduce their prices and sell more.
To automate the processes......would be highly beneficial if they want to survive.
Firstly there is never any excuse or reason irrespective of the age of the machine for having swarf or punched out teeth of a saw landing on the floor. A simply fabricated shoot can always be created to divert stuff into a receptacle. May sound trivial, but for a high quality product you need a clean, tidy and well organised production facility. Rubbish on the floor invariably means rubbish out of the door. No one likes working in a mess.
The process of making a saw is methodical, each step can be defined and timed. From this step by step chart the work required can be divided up amongst a number of work stations to achieve a equal amount of work being carried out by each operator and each operator working constantly and not having to wait for work from the previous operation. There is no investment required to do this. Each minute costs money and needs to be used wisely and effectively. The time taken to make a saw can then be calculated, this is known as the Tackt time.
The work stations could be moved as close together as possible, to eliminate the need to either store parts between processes and to reduce the amount of movement or travel they have to go through as the work is completed. Again, no real cost involved.
The operators would normally rotate during the day through each process to relieve boredom and also to allow them to use different muscles. Not only does this lead to less tiring work but also makes them more efficient and effective.
Layout tools for the saw blanks world lead to less metal being wasted when the saw blanks are being cut out. The steel coil is not optimised to the blank size again creating excessive waste.
The drill for the handle just needs a multiplying head adding so that it can drill all of the saw bolt homes at once with the correct spacing every time. A simply jig added to the drill table would ensure the correct location. An air or electric screw driver with torque control would speed up adding the nuts to the saw bolts.
Give the place a lick of white paint, clean the Windows to let in more natural light (don't need as many lights), define locations for where parts are stored, place them if possible within reach of the operator.
This type of re-lay out and organisation sounds simple and is, best of all it costs almost nothing. However from the video of the place it would not be hard to reduce the labour time taken to make a saw by half. This would not involve replacing any of the ancient machines or reduce the skill of the workers. But, at a guess the cost of the saw is probably 15% material and 85% labour (all of the machines will have been fully depreciated), so for the same retail price they can either increase their profits, or alternatively reduce their prices and sell more.
To automate the processes......would be highly beneficial if they want to survive.
