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68 MMS June 2014 mmsonline.com CNC TECH TALK Columnist brings it to the bench, cleans it, deburs it, mea- sures it, reports the measured finding to the SPC system and makes a sizing adjustment. He then picks up the next piece of raw material. It's grimy. He cleans it and removes a burr that will affect wo r k p i e c e l o ad i n g. H e th e n p l ac e s i t i n th e workholding device, closes the door, and starts the next cycle. What's wrong with this picture? There are many things, of course, that the operator could be doing while the machine is in-cycle in order to get ready for the next cycle and to minimize the number of things that must be done while the machine is down between cycles. I've heard this referred to as staging. Figure out what can b e s t a g e d fo r u p c o m i n g wo r k, a n d b e s u re operators know as well. Similarly, figure out what the operator (or someone else) could be doing to get ready for an upcoming job. 5. People are not where they are supposed to be. As you walk the shop, look for people who are not where they belong, meaning they are not operating the machines they are supposed to be operating. It's likely that they've had to walk away from their machines in order to get some- thing—a ha nd tool, a gage, a n inse r t. W hile certain items obviously will have to be gathered before a setup can be made or a production run completed, be sure that shop workers are con- solidating their trips to minimize the number of time s they must le ave a machine. Your goal should be to keep setup people at their machines for the entire setup and operators for the entire production run. If all items needed to complete a setup or production run can be gathered once (and before the job comes up) you can eliminate a lot of downtime in your shop. Identifying wasted productivity can be as easy as tak ing a stroll through the manufacturing f a c i l i t y a n d o b s e r v i n g w h at th e p e o p l e a n d machines in it are doing—or not doing. If you look for common productivit y killers such as those described here, you can come up with solutions for eliminating the waste. 0614_MMS_cnctechtalk.indd 68 5/14/2014 9:51:32 AM