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Long Spring Season (170+ hours OT)

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  • Long Spring Season (170+ hours OT)

    Yep, I have logged over 170 hours of OT . Only 20 hours were mandatory, so it is partly my fault.

    I work in a precision manufacturing plant making smaller parts, mostly aircraft parts but we also make parts for almost every industry you can imagine.

    Small town western Kansas gives us an advantage too. Cost of living is a lot lower (ex. rent is about 1/3 of what you would pay in Denver. My house loan payment is less than what my brother used to pay for rent on an apartment 1/4 the size of my house). I did the math one time (including food, cloths, roof, utilities, ect.) the $14/hr I make, is the same as $18-20/hr in the shity city. *darn, I keep doing that *

    Then comes the fact that we are too darn good at our jobs. One customer said that our Scrap were better than our competitors "good" part (Scrap parts get cast into the firey furnace of recycling for being out-of-tolerance). Then awarded us another contract to fill what they could not get from our "competition" (if you can call them that ).

    Sounds great! Added 2 months, running 20 hrs/day, to finish that job.

    Same thing just happened again. Order came in for several thousand parts, at just over 4 min/part came to..................... about 6 weeks. Then half way through, they doubled the order, and then order another large order for similar parts. We were able to speed up the parts some, shaved off a week. ("law of big numbers" 1 sec over 10,000 parts is 2hr 46min. )

    Speaking of which, I did have to run both machines last week. That is not easy, but at least they were almost the same part (only the lengths were different). 1min 20sec and 3min 45sec parts, bar feed lathes (so no loading). Cleaning/Deburring took 30sec and 45sec and you had to be careful not to "over-deburr" so you could not speed up any faster without risking the part. So it was really easy to get a lot of scrap quickly and you have to dash back and forth quickly. Heaven help you if you have a problem on one machine that takes time to fix. Because by the time you made it to the other machine, you might have 20+ parts. The parts were really light, so on one machine the coolant would blow the parts out, and you had to wait on them to move through the chip conveyor. Too many parts, and they will get buried in the cursed chips (even worse, Stainless Steel ). The Lord was with though, I kept up enough that I had only 3 "Operator fault" scrap, out of 1500+ parts so >0.2% (I had more, but they were classified as End-of-bar or dents/dings caused by "parts catcher").

    So every time we start to get caught up, every time we add a new machine (4 $250,000 powerhouses in just 3 months), every time we hire new people. We get more and more work.
    And. I. Love. It. see my signiture

    Good job, Good job security, Good pay, Good benefits.

    I even learned how to use the Pythagorean Theorem to fix an off center tool on a lathe-type machine. Take that "Weak-Minded-Mockers" (tm), I am using Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, and Physics; EVERY SINGLE GLORIOUS DAY, PRAISE THE LORD. HAHAHAHA

    We still miss Joe though. If he was still here, we could get machines set-up faster, and get more people trained to set-up machines (it usually takes 1-3 days to set-one up correctly. I have never seen a "fast set-up" run correctly). I will post more about Joe in the other thread. (I have collected a couple stories about him )

    On one last note. If you are interested in moving to beautiful Western Kansas, PM me. The company is hiring. If you have a good attendance record at work/school and are willing to learn, we are hiring. HS diploma/GED is nice, but not required. We provide full on-job training. Starting pay is based on Experience; but Quarterly, performance bases, raises happen during the first year (Annual raises after that). Company pays a good portion of your Health Insurance. 10 hour days, 4 days a week (gives us Friday and Saturday for OT. 95% of which is voluntary.)

    We are treated rather well. The town is small enough that everyone knows everyone. Example, I know the Company Founder/Owner/President on a first name basis. He is rather "Old-School" in his practices, in a good way (does not over-spend but buys what we need, works hard, will retire when he dies, ect.).

    The town is also very nice and is growing. We have excellent schools with a really good academic record (our sports teams also do well generally). We are only one hour from a Walmart and they are in Nebraska (no sales tax on food ).

    Why yes, we are quite desperate to hire anyone (willing to show up, learn, and work).

    But I love my job.

    (Disclaimer: The numbers used for part descriptions, cycle times, and order sizes have been changed to protect customer confidentiality. They are there only for the general idea.)
    I might be crazy, but I'm not Insane.

    What? You don't play with flamethrowers on the weekends? You are strange.

  • #2
    Sounds like (in general terms) your workplace does the same thing that another CS user's workplace does, except without the idiot cow-irkers (TM Dilbert) that the user writes about.
    Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

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    • #3
      It's great to hear an American manufacturing company is doing well!
      When you start at zero, everything's progress.

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      • #4
        My husband would get a kick out of you saying how much you use math and physics. He likes to tease me about my math allergy. I don't think I'm a slouch in the overtime department. I put in almost 21 hours today, tomorrow will be 14 hours, then we have two days off followed by six days straight. 3 of those days will be 20 hour days and 3 will be 14 hour days. The nice thing about Alaska is we get paid overtime for anything over 8 hours in a day.

        I may have to talk to my husband about moving to Kansas. I'll admit, it isn't on my list of places to move. Seward, Alaska still tops that list, but this job would be right up his alley.
        Question authority, but raise your hand first. -Alan M. Bershowitz

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