TheSickness
Full Access Member
I voted Potato over Potatoe 
Our Conspicious Consumption...
- Thread starter Prof
- Start date
Turtle
New Member
TheSickness said:I voted Potato over Potatoe
:thefinger: :congrats: :thefinger: :congrats: :thefinger: :congrats: :finger:
:rofl: :rofl:
Some interesting comments on the cost of oil, the threats to oil production and the credit crunch...could Auto Loans be the next financial problem area....?
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1971
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1971
Any comments on this topic now that we have been to the precipice of financial disaster and back since we last considered the issue?
Not sure that we are back yet Roy. Personally I have some real fears regarding the next 3 years.
I believe you are right Dad.Silverback said:Not sure that we are back yet Roy. Personally I have some real fears regarding the next 3 years.
Black1
Full Access Member
I do believe recycling is a great emerging field to get into... Some of the "zero emission" recycling (where no CFCs, say from recycling foam, gets released into the atmosphere during the process) is really amazing. With all of the waste we create, we could create some wonderful things.
I am constantly amazed at the amount of trash that this household generates weekly.
Black1
Full Access Member
Prof said:
One thing about Illinois tho.... They do tend to have good recycling programs.
Do you have to separate your paper/plasic/glass in different bins?
Black1
Full Access Member
Black1 said:I do believe recycling is a great emerging field to get into... Some of the "zero emission" recycling (where no CFCs, say from recycling foam, gets released into the atmosphere during the process) is really amazing. With all of the waste we create, we could create some wonderful things.
http://www.untha-recyclingtechnik.c...ront/4ace91a5177a02f02741d43f4702066a/Catalog
Black1 said:One thing about Illinois tho.... They do tend to have good recycling programs.
Many areas of Illinois do have to segregate, but our carrier does not require it, so it probably just puts everything into a landfill.
OK new issue:
This was announced yesterday:
"Facing intense competition from foreign maintenance companies, American and its mechanics have collaborated to cut the time and number of workers needed to complete a major overhaul called a "heavy check" — during which mechanics strip the interior of the plane all the way down to the skeleton. The overhaul now takes 12 days instead of 22, and a little more than 300 workers, down from 700.
Troy Sokolowski, who oversees the airline's MD-80 major repairs, gives much of the credit to his mechanics.
"Why it's such a huge success is because we had people off the floor — who actually do the job — who said this is how we could do it and we can do it more efficiently, and we can do it better," he says."
(Full story at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113971588)
My question is how in the hell did it ever get to the point that it took 700 people, 22 days to do a job that can all of a sudden, because of competition, be done by 300 people in 12 days???? :dontknow: :dontknow: :dontknow:
This is why unions are killing themselves in my opinion
This was announced yesterday:
"Facing intense competition from foreign maintenance companies, American and its mechanics have collaborated to cut the time and number of workers needed to complete a major overhaul called a "heavy check" — during which mechanics strip the interior of the plane all the way down to the skeleton. The overhaul now takes 12 days instead of 22, and a little more than 300 workers, down from 700.
Troy Sokolowski, who oversees the airline's MD-80 major repairs, gives much of the credit to his mechanics.
"Why it's such a huge success is because we had people off the floor — who actually do the job — who said this is how we could do it and we can do it more efficiently, and we can do it better," he says."
(Full story at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113971588)
My question is how in the hell did it ever get to the point that it took 700 people, 22 days to do a job that can all of a sudden, because of competition, be done by 300 people in 12 days???? :dontknow: :dontknow: :dontknow:
This is why unions are killing themselves in my opinion
Prof said:OK new issue:
This was announced yesterday:
"Facing intense competition from foreign maintenance companies, American and its mechanics have collaborated to cut the time and number of workers needed to complete a major overhaul called a "heavy check" — during which mechanics strip the interior of the plane all the way down to the skeleton. The overhaul now takes 12 days instead of 22, and a little more than 300 workers, down from 700.
Troy Sokolowski, who oversees the airline's MD-80 major repairs, gives much of the credit to his mechanics.
"Why it's such a huge success is because we had people off the floor — who actually do the job — who said this is how we could do it and we can do it more efficiently, and we can do it better," he says."
(Full story at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113971588)
My question is how in the hell did it ever get to the point that it took 700 people, 22 days to do a job that can all of a sudden, because of competition, be done by 300 people in 12 days???? :dontknow: :dontknow: :dontknow:
This is why unions are killing themselves in my opinion
I will comment on this when I get home today.
Thanks John...I think you will have a special perspective on this that will be valuable in trying to understand where we have been, how we got there and where we need to go in the future.
Okay, where the hell do I start?
I think I will start with processes and procedures. And it's kind of funny in a way, as I just explained this to a young engineer that I'm mentoring.
So, the FAA for the most part does not define what a manufacturer does. What they do is review what we say we are going to do, and then audit us to ensure we do as we say.
An example of this is lets say a mechanic drills some hole(s) wrong by mistake. Our process is to write a rejection tag. It's then routed to a liaison engineer that dispositions the tag for the repair. The repair is made and all is well. The FAA does not okay the repair. They are only concerned that we followed our procedures in effecting that repair.
Still with me?
It's pretty much the same with the airlines and their maintenance. The FAA or NTSB may mandate, or recommend that repairs be made, but not how. The airline has to follow their procedures in doing those repairs.
Now the airlines can revise, and submit the procedures to the FAA for review and approval. So that means they can simplify what they do. This can reduce the time and costs associated with repairs.
Now for the part that I'm directly involved in. Tooling. And for that I will give you an example.
It used to take a team of 4 to 6 men, and an overhead crane, up to 8+ hours to remove a main landing gear assembly. There was a little company in the Alanta area that came up with a tool that reduced this time to around 2 hours, and a single man could manuvuer it out from under a wing.
I have been with Boeing for real close to 30 years now. For the most part in the first 20 years, all we did was look at how it had been done on the previous program, and we copied it. We might make some small improvements, but basically it's still the same old, same old.
In the last 10 years, Boeing has been making great strides in becoming Lean.
The link below is out in the public, so I can talk about it.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=737+moving+line&gbv=2
The old method of final assembly was with the planes nosed in towards the building walls, pretty much the same as at an airport. That meant that every time we rolled out a plane, every other plane had to move. This was done one at a time with the same tugs that you see at the airport. Very time consuming, and the mechanics could not work during this time. In the pictures in the above link, you see that the planes are now nose to tail and moving towards the door. No disruptions to the work as the plane is moving.
So the airlines are applying the same principles to what they do. They are leaning out their processes to reduce time and costs. And needless to say, this has to be done without compromising safety.
I'm really sorry for the long post, but there was not a simple answer to Roy's question.
I'm hoping that sometime in the next year Boeing will be announcing the project that I have been working on. At that time I will be able to share something even more amazing.
I think I will start with processes and procedures. And it's kind of funny in a way, as I just explained this to a young engineer that I'm mentoring.
So, the FAA for the most part does not define what a manufacturer does. What they do is review what we say we are going to do, and then audit us to ensure we do as we say.
An example of this is lets say a mechanic drills some hole(s) wrong by mistake. Our process is to write a rejection tag. It's then routed to a liaison engineer that dispositions the tag for the repair. The repair is made and all is well. The FAA does not okay the repair. They are only concerned that we followed our procedures in effecting that repair.
Still with me?
It's pretty much the same with the airlines and their maintenance. The FAA or NTSB may mandate, or recommend that repairs be made, but not how. The airline has to follow their procedures in doing those repairs.
Now the airlines can revise, and submit the procedures to the FAA for review and approval. So that means they can simplify what they do. This can reduce the time and costs associated with repairs.
Now for the part that I'm directly involved in. Tooling. And for that I will give you an example.
It used to take a team of 4 to 6 men, and an overhead crane, up to 8+ hours to remove a main landing gear assembly. There was a little company in the Alanta area that came up with a tool that reduced this time to around 2 hours, and a single man could manuvuer it out from under a wing.
I have been with Boeing for real close to 30 years now. For the most part in the first 20 years, all we did was look at how it had been done on the previous program, and we copied it. We might make some small improvements, but basically it's still the same old, same old.
In the last 10 years, Boeing has been making great strides in becoming Lean.
The link below is out in the public, so I can talk about it.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=737+moving+line&gbv=2
The old method of final assembly was with the planes nosed in towards the building walls, pretty much the same as at an airport. That meant that every time we rolled out a plane, every other plane had to move. This was done one at a time with the same tugs that you see at the airport. Very time consuming, and the mechanics could not work during this time. In the pictures in the above link, you see that the planes are now nose to tail and moving towards the door. No disruptions to the work as the plane is moving.
So the airlines are applying the same principles to what they do. They are leaning out their processes to reduce time and costs. And needless to say, this has to be done without compromising safety.
I'm really sorry for the long post, but there was not a simple answer to Roy's question.
I'm hoping that sometime in the next year Boeing will be announcing the project that I have been working on. At that time I will be able to share something even more amazing.
Damn. Guess I should have used the short version.
Yep, they cans does it.
Yep, they cans does it.
I guess my question becomes...why is it competition from Mexico that pushes a company to cut time and human resources required in half? Why is there not a culture of continuous improvement? I am the one that ends up paying for the inability of American Airlines to achieve these kind of efficiencies just to reduce my cost of using their product/service...where was management...where was the desire to be very good at what they do rather than sit on their butts until they were threatened by having to outsource the service? Makes me sick.
Black1
Full Access Member
Prof said:
It has (at least) something to do with laziness... and the possible negative publicity of cutting those hundreds of jobs the new process would have made possible. Companies are really in a hard place right now... they can either adopt LEAN manufacturing, and kill jobs (receiving bad press and hate/discontent from the people)... or they don't adopt leaner, more streamlined practices and stick to what they do (receiving bad press and hate/discontent from the people).
Prof said:
I'm surprised you don't know the answer to that question Roy.
Normally change only comes when it's forced or necessary. Generally humans will just keep on doing the same thing the same way unless forced to change.
You would not have believed all the bitching and moaning that went on when Boeing went to the moving line for the 737. Most said it would never work. Other's threatened to transfer to other areas. However, if you went out to the shop today and asked if anyone wanted to go back to the old way of doing things, the resounding answer would be NO!
It's the same with American Airlines. They changed because they had to. If they had not been pressured to make those changes, it would still be the old way of doing it.
I am amazed that our companies don't understand the concept of continuous improvement...the embracing of change as a constant in the work place...and forever striving to do things right the first time...
I guess I have been out of industry too long...we used to celebrate the discovery of better ways to do things...maybe it is better now, but I guess I would not fit in...nothing new there...I seldom fit existing molds.
Jake and John...you guys have to be frustrated with the situation???
Where are the 6 Sigma Black Belts these days?
I guess I have been out of industry too long...we used to celebrate the discovery of better ways to do things...maybe it is better now, but I guess I would not fit in...nothing new there...I seldom fit existing molds.
Jake and John...you guys have to be frustrated with the situation???
Where are the 6 Sigma Black Belts these days?
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