Too Bad... So Sad...

[TouchDown]

Well at my work, I'm the process engineer (manufacturing) for an operation that has 4 operators across 3 shifts, and 3 maintenance personnel across 3 shifts...

In the last 2 weeks, we've learned that 2 of the maintenance guys are leaving (one to Minnesota and one to 12 hour facility crew - still in the plant, but in another area).

Then this past Friday it was announced that management was doing a "re-alignment". We were heavy with operators on 1st shift, and they were reducing some higher job grades, forcing them to the off shifts. All this movement, out of all the plant, has impacted our area the worst. I lost all 4 operators - including on 1st shift, a 30 year vetran, who has operated these machines for 20+ years...

So - almost all (except one maintenance guy) knowledge base is leaving the department.

OOOHHH... I applied for another process engineering job on the other side of the plant and found out today that I got it.

It kind of pisses me off that they cut back all the operators especially the one with 30+ years, who's a single parent with a teenager at home, and they are making her move to the off-shifts. Serves them right, now after doing that, and I'm moving, they are really going to regret cutting that deep. Oh well, whomever made the choice must have thought all the scenarios through and thinks that the area can operate on it's own with absolutely NO knowlege of the process with anyone associated.

Dumbasses. I think sometimes they are only looking at numbers and don't really step back to look at the big picture or get input from those who would know.

 

[TouchDown]

don't know how I fubar'd that, but this should have gone under engineering topics... can you move it for me?

 

[FusionWhite]

Reshuffling people like that can completely screw up a plants operation. When I was cooping in a plant a crane operator got fired for screwing up badly. The bad news was there was no replacement for him. A new crane operator had to be trained from scratch. Even though the guy screwed up he was a good operator and knew what was going on. Instead we now had 3 weeks of delays while some newbie was training.

I cant imagine how badly an operation gets screwed up when a whole damn shift gets replaced.

 

[EdinNO]

Great that you get to make the move. I hope you like it as much over there or even more and that no hard feelings arise within the plant.

I forget (or maybe didn't know), what is it that your company manufactures?

Great news (on the other position)! :thumbsup:

Ed

 

[TouchDown]

We basically fabricate electronic components. There are 4 different divisions in the plant:

1. Flexible circuits - that is where I am / was (I made copper foil substrate for the creation of circuits on flexible dielectric film.

2. Components (sockets / headers) - is where I'm moving to, this is basically older equipment with less technology, but it's much more mechanical which is more to my liking. That business is growing, while the flex circuits has such price pressure from Asia, it's working on ways to compete. I'm going to be the new metal stamping engineer for the headers.

3. Medical - a lot of neat stuff there, but they are a very small group that make some packets for bacteria testing (unsure what it is really, they just started up that stuff about 6 months ago).

4. Library systems - another very small operation, with only 3 operators which make RF tags used for library book ID.

it's a pretty diverse plant, so a lot of different manufacturing technologies. We have a full functioning Tool and Die department (3 shifts), a lot of inspection / troubleshooting technologies in our characterization lab (SEM, high powered scopes, XRF, FTIR, Interferometer, etc.). We've got about 600 employees on site now, when I hired on about 10 years ago, that was 1200... How things change.

 

[EdinNO]

Pretty cool. Maybe they're curtailing the flex circuit group?

Ed

 

[TouchDown]

We have seen a big push to move flex production to SEA, we still have high volume products, but we are much more of a prototype shop... We work hard to see how to make new products, feel the pain, then send it overseas once bugs are worked out to put it into high volume, low cost production...

It's not a bad situation, they (SEA) rely on us quite a bit, but it get's pretty frustrating when you see people losing their jobs and the remaining one's are stuck with a LOT of work to make sure we get the parts quickly and quality, so we can secure business for SEA.

It's not a completely bleak future, but it is definately shaping up to be a quarter to quarter pins and needles waiting to see if the division management wants to cut back more and more to make themselves look good until they move onto another spot 1-2 years from now.

Very little forward thinking in that area as many products are becoming more and more consumables and worth less and less (when you get to higher volume, lower cost, pressures increase to move to cheap labor). That's why we were so excited to see medical group join the plant - medical is a pain with reporting and documentation, but it's relatively lucrative because we have all the infrastructure in house to support it and make it happen.