Question

ises and Problems 13.8 Calming an Angry Co-worker (LO 13-1 to LO 13-3) You're a member of a self-managed team on a factory assembly line. When, you check the team's e-mail, you find this message from the factory's Quality Assurance Manager: Subject: Holes in Your Heads? Yesterday in the scrap bin I found a casting with three times too many holes in it. How could a machinist make such a mistake? What's going on? The answer is simple. The extra holes come not from crazy machinists but from crafty ones. Your team uses old machines that aren't computerized. When you make a part on those machines, you have to drill a test piece first to be sure that the alignment and size of the holes are correct. This testing has to be done every time you set up for a new run. Your team has figured out that you carn use less material by reusing the test piece until it resem- bles Swiss cheese, rather than throwing it away after a single testing. Your team is one of the most efficient in the plant, thanks to creative moves like this one. Write an e-mail response. 250 words

Answer 1

The extra holes you see in the casting are a result of testing the drill. Rather than testing the drill on multiple casting we take one casting and we use it as a base for testing the drill size multiple times. It directly reduces the overall cost as well as also reduces the wastage. As the testing is done only on one casting it directly increases the efficiency of the system and also provides positive outcome for keeping the cost low. As you don't have a computerized drilling mechanism, testing is necessary to create an accurate drilling standard. This specific move has increased our team adaptability and help us to be the most efficient team in the organisation. The middle piece you found in the garbage is one of the casting that we use for testing the drill and greatly reducing the overall cost of multiple test that is required for every new Run setup.
There are no machines that are capable of aligning the drill or touching the drill without any kind of hole Making process in the casting, this process is consistently done on a single piece of casting by drilling at different places and looking at the size of the specific whole. The result of the specific system is that a single piece can be reused several times which does not only reduces the cost but also increases efficiency as it saves time of bringing in new casting.