O/T Idiot Proofing.....

[Bruce Caulley]

Due to a shortage of tradesmen here in Australia our shop is full of immigrants. Only problem is that they are ENGLISH!!!!

[HevyMetl]

One of my Monkeys higher up the tree is English (or British as he always corrects)

 

I totally understand.

[Bruce Caulley]

What I don't understand is how such a small country can produce so many different accents. Some are impossible to understand when they get a bit excited.

 

Shift's over. I'm going home.

[Roger Peterson]

Boy, you are in a tough situation. I completely agree that it is the operators responsibility and actions should be taken. But the reality is if something doesn't change you will eventually loose the job, so you must do something. I am not sure if the rest of the guys here have been involved with any other type of manufacturing but from what I've seen machine shops have it pretty good compared to punch press, injection molding, etc... You should definately be able to hard wire a user definable M code to interupt the unclamp circuit, but now you need to have an overide button for safety reasons, it's a viscious circle. And as you all know 100% human inspection is only 80% accurate, it's a fact of life. You can however purchase an inexpensive ($2000.00 - $3000.00) vision system from DVT, Omron, etc... that you can have inspect your parts and output a spc log for tracking. If the spc log says there are 6 bad parts, there better be 6 parts in the reject bin for the supervisor to deal with. You are not going to measure down to .00001" but you will be surprised how accurate they can measure, and you will know if the parts have been machined or not. Now after all of the interlocking, the vision system, rubber stamps, etc... If somebody wants to put a "bad" part in a box they will find a way. Good luck and let us know how it all turns out.

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

1.You must fire your operators and bring immigrants ,young man wishing to learn trade ,

martians or anyone else wishing to learn things and responsible .

2. Do not add code ,nor change machine protection ladder logic or anything else with original level of machine security cause if happens something

(part flaw from machine ,or it flaw ,pushed away toolholder ,it broke protection like antitank shell and rocked all over teh shop demolishing all on it`s way and I saw such things with my own eyes )and GSYFT someone will be hurt or killed you together with your boss will pay $$$$$$$ and can find yourself in jail .

 

Try to turn your guys to the real team of profesionals , responcible and intelligent,teach them how to work , and you will show your boss ,that it is a common mistake to believe ,that any boy from Macdonalds or floor sweeper with IQ25 can be a good operator !

[Brendan P]

quote:

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Try to turn your guys to the real team of profesionals , responcible and intelligent,teach them how to work , and you will show your boss ,that it is a common mistake to believe ,that any boy from Macdonalds or floor sweeper with IQ25 can be a good operator !

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+1000

 

Adding any software/hardware to idiot proof a job for your reasons IMO is just allowing them to not use their heads, and accepting the fact that they are too lazy to excersize their brains a little!

 

Putting a part on a machine,going to lunch (maybe smoking a dubie or having a drink)and then coming back from lunch and taking the part off,without even cutting it, is pathetic in my book!

 

 

I say this respectfully.

[biss03]

quote:

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Putting a part on a machine,going to lunch (maybe smoking a dubie or having a drink)and then coming back from lunch and taking the part off,without even cutting it, is pathetic in my book!

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if this were the case i could somewhat live with it. but i'm talking from the time it takes to go 8 steps sideways and load the machine next to it and turn back.

 

like i've said, firing the operators just leaves us short of operators. even if we get more in they are the same for the most part. highly skilled people with brains don't want to work for $8-$10 / hr running a machine from what we've found.

[Lathe-Mill]

.

[Brendan P]

quote:

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highly skilled people with brains don't want to work for $8-$10 / hr running a machine from what we've found.

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And they shouldn't.

Not trying to be funny,but you get what you pay for.

I wouldn't expect very much from anyone paying a wage like this.

Please don't think that I'm trying to be disrespectful.

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

there many ways to make 2000 parts 30 min instead of 1 15 seconds .

Think in this way ,this is your responsibility .

Give the part example ,and may be some of us will share their secrets

[biss03]

brendan... i have much respect for you and your comments. in fact i would put you up there with the likes of james or jayson or some of the others i'm failing to mention. believe it or not but that is actually HIGH for the area compared to other shops. a good operator at our company can top out at $12-$14 /hr. - just to load parts,push a button, unload parts, inspect, repeat. i don't think thats too bad. i don't control this part of the company so i could be off a little on the numbers but you get the idea.

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

Biss!

As I said before creative approach can do wonders .

If your cycle time 15 seconds 2 tools even 6-12 places fixture can give a boost in speed production at least 2-3 times -less toolchanges ,table movements and so on .

You can revise all your technology to multipart

approach starting from stock ,adding tools to take chamfers by undercut and so on to get rid of this annoying little operations using rotary 4 axes for multifixturing ,vacuum,pallets ,making thin parts from the plate leaving tabs ,using disk mills to cut 50 -100 little parts from rectangular bars and so on .

We hated push and take off operations and always found a way to get rid of them after a brain

attack .

And you will also make operators life more attractive ,they will have time to check part and smoke a light .

[biss03]

winnie...thanks for the suggestions. the part isn't high volume for one thing. we've already loaded up as many parts as possible on the table and are only running one tool to cut all the features. the machining is that of 2 bosses on each part 90 degree from each other. the cycle time is lightning fast and any more parts and it would take the operator even longer and lose more production. since i started this thread, i've also thought about having a conveyor system at the cell that the operator unloads the parts from machine and places on conveyor with a sensor "looking" at the part to make sure it is machined.

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

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with a sensor "looking" at the part to make sure it is machined.

~~~~~~~~~~

Weight detector ?

[Brendan P]

quote:

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brendan... i have much respect for you and your comments. in fact i would put you up there with the likes of james or jayson or some of the others i'm failing to mention.

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I'm not soo sure 'bout this....

I couldn't hold a candle next to these gentleman.

But I do apreciate the nice comments.

 

I do understand your frustration,as we go thru the same crap.

But for some reason,I don't think any shop owner should have to put up with it.

 

When I was out on the floor,I took very much pride in my work,and I don't see much of this anymore.

 

My problem is that I'm a perfectionist and have little tolorence for mistakes.

 

I do realize that we are all not perfect.

[mold100]

quote:

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O/T Idiot Proofing

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I dont need proof.

[Bruce Caulley]

One way we make sure parts are machined is to drop them through a template into a sorting box before they are dried and packed. If the parts go through: they have been machined. If they don't...........

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

You can mark parts with a marker

Put in a toolholder paint marker with a spring damper and write a simple drill cycle without rpm`s and make it final operation

If you do not use coolant in prev operations it will be OK

In this way you can mark finished parts

 

HTH

HF

Teh crazy creative approach to crazy things.

[MetalMarvels]

Even a fully-automated system that starts with raw castings dumped into a sorter-orienter that feeds a robotic arm placing the castings into pre-nested palletized clamping systems that are automatically routed through the mill and out to a fully automated - robotic picker and packer can be "sabotaged" by the simple expedient of pulling a finished part out of the box and putting in a raw casting. You cannot prevent deliberate acts (you might be able to catch them in the act - but you cannot stop it). The problem with this approach is cost - lots of $$$$$ and time to set it up. It also doesn't prevent an idiot from defeating the lockouts, opening the safety cage, walking into a cell to "clean", and getting smashed by the robot (it has happened).

 

"Stacking" the parts on a template board could be a possibility - if the boss won't "stack" in the hole - it wasn't machined. The "template" boards could be set up to be stackable (if the castings all "fit" the template holes). The problem with this approach is the time and materials necessary to implement it. You would not want to ship the boards unless you can get the customer to recycle them back to you. It also increases the packing weight and associated shipping costs. Pulling each piece from the "template" boards to pack them is a "new" action - you get to handle every piece - twice (once to pull it off the fixture and once to pack it).

 

Color marking the part as the last machine operation is an interesting idea that would make a visual scan of each "layer" a snap. This sounds like a simple and elegant solution if coolant is not an issue. Perhaps one of those "chip fans" would dry the boss off enough for a marker to "take". However, it won't prevent deliberate acts (i.e. someone taking a raw casting, marking it, and putting it in the out bin). It also adds to the machine cycle time.

 

However, it sounds like you have a sufficient level of production and an inspection approach that virtually assures that "escapes" or unmachined parts will get through - humans are simply not very good at visually inspecting an array of things like this over the period of a shift - the mind will tend to "fill-in" missing or incorrrect details when they are a part of a lorger group. As it was noted earlier in the postings - after awhile you simply do not see that one bad part in the middle of all the good parts.

 

The "checking" template could be as simple as a "fork" - a flat bar with a slot (with chamfered or rounded prongs that allows an operator to quickly slip in on and off the boss from the side). Sort of like the "pickle-fork" tie rod separating tools for popping the ball joints of your car's steering system apart. In other words, a real fast GO / NO-GO guage (someone has to pull the parts out of the basket - presumeably after the cleaning cycle). It would add 1-2 seconds per part to the process of pulling the part from the basket and stacking it on the flats for shipping. You don't even have to look at the part to do it. You have ONE person pick, guage, pack, and seal a box - they sign off on the BOX. If a box gets to the customer with a bad part - WHO PACKED THE BOX??? You know who to talk to. Solve the "split" box problem at hand-off by having the leaving operator sign off on x-layers.

 

Again, this will not stop deliberate acts of sabotage, but a GO / NO-GO setup should eliminate unintentional escapes.

 

We had a similar issue with a very simple part - there was not much difference between the "raw" part and finished part - a guage was our ultimate solution. Of course a guage will have to be inspected periodically.....

[L Hanft]

Pay someone to mark all the surfaces you are going to machine with crayon marker..... if the marks not gone well. Yea it's a waste of resources but someone might have a few seconds in a prior operation to make the marks?

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

Sabotage will knock down every idiot-proof method ,but there is one solution.

In my country there is a difference when you leave a job and when you are fired .

So sometimes PPL sabotaging to be fired .

One my former shop owner used to say -

if someone needs to be fired ,just tell me so ,I will do it ,he will get everything ,just do not make sabotages .

It makes a lot of sense - he would loose many times >.

People in sane mind and in normal relations

with bosses and co-workers will never do this

.

[Müřlıń®]

Hey biss, why dont you spray some xxxxm on the area of the part that gets machined.

 

All the operator has to do is to check and see if the xxxxm has been machined.......

 

If its a composit part that cant be painted, drip some wax on the area...

 

 

...shrugs.....

 

 

Murlin

[biss03]

gary..thanks for the well spoken response. color marking the parts in the machine wont work due to the coolant being used to flush the chips rather than air in the cycle. so the parts are wet when they come out and get put in the box. plus, this would still not prevent raw parts from getting out. i like the idea of a checking gage more for the final inspection area. this could work. the problem with signing off on the boxes is that when they leave here they go to paint. they lose all traceability once they get to paint because they don't paint them and pack them box for box. i know this sounds stupid but the die-cast company who is our customer approved this process!

 

murlin... the parts are die-cast aluminum with a darker grey tint to them. after machine, they are your typical looking aluminum color. sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the grey.

[T_MALENA]

WOW, lots of opinions here. And I thought I worked with some real idiots!

 

Remember: Artificial intelligence is NO match for natural stupidity!

[chris m]

quote:

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the parts are die-cast aluminum with a darker grey tint to them. after machine, they are your typical looking aluminum color. sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the grey

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This must bring us back to the initial problem; does it not?

 

You could probably train chickens or pigeons or something to peck at the parts that aren't machined since the humans apparently can't handle it...

 

C