darsequipment. Slitting rewinding and sheeting

Increasing winder speed; Facts versus fiction: Ch. 37

2004-06-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

Calculating actual run time cycles:

Before you bid on a job, it is best to determine if your plant has the right equipment to do the job. For example, if the counter roll customer specifies half inch cores on the finished rolls, you cannot run this job on your Cameron duplex slitter rewinder. it will not work.

To run small core diameter rolls you need a machine designed for the job. We will cover small core production in some future posts. For now we will continue with our counter roll project.

How to determine ramp speed:

Ramp speed is computed by the operator based on actual trial runs. It is almost impossible to hit this number right on the head based on paper calculations. Let us not split hairs. One can figure things out without an actual trial run by estimating line speeds. The accuracy of these calculations will be directly proportional to the operator's experience.

Golden rule of estimating:

If you have to bid on a job, it is best to be on the cautious side. I always advise my clients to bid a job based on your slowest ramp speed. If you have run this stock in the past then you have precise figures to work with. Any new material that you have not run before , must be carefully evaluated.

Load times:

Determine the number of cycles for loading the unwind stand. If each parent roll of paper is 50,000 feet, at 500 feet per finished roll, you will have to change this roll every 100 cycles. This is just to give you an idea. Ofcourse the footage will vary depending on the job.

In actual practice, here is what you can expect. Once the parent roll is loaded on the unwind stand, the operator threads the paper through the winder. He cuts off several hundred feet of this paper in setting the machine. Setting tension control, setting the slitting knives, adjusting the web etc.

Towards the end of the cycle, the operator will stop the machine before the roll has run out of paper. These "stub" rolls can be salvaged, but that is another subject. In other words, you cannot calculate 100 cycles for this project. 98 or in the best case situation 99 cycles is what you can expect.

If you do not allow for this "waste" factor, you are building an error in your bid that will hurt the bottom line.

Secondly, the time it takes to load the parent roll on to the unwind stand has to kept in mind. The length of time it takes to pick up a parent roll, bring it to the winder, load the unwind shaft, position the roll onto the stand, "square" the roll and finally thread the web has to be calculated. In addition the setting of the slitting knives, setting the tension control, the brake tension and the nip roll pressure also has to be taken into account.

Don't forget the time it takes the operator to load the rewind shafts with the cores and pick up these rewind shafts and lock them on the rewind arms. It may surprise you to know that this loading and unloading can take more time than the actual rewinding cycle!

This is Dr. Winder saying bye bye for now....Live long and prosper.

Slitters: Increasing speed: myth; Chapter 36

2004-06-29T09:31:00.000-07:00

Estimating production runs based on actual field tests versus pie-in-sky dreams:

In the last two posts we addressed the actual "run times" of a duplex slitter rewinder. The start-stop cycle time issues were calculated. In this post we will continue to explore these points in more detail.

This is the biggest mistake made by converting plants when bidding or estimating run times on any given converting job. A simple calculation mistake can lead to thousands of dollars in losses. This can also lead to future loss of business.

A client who was charged a dollar a roll for the last job is going to be extremely upset when you discover your mistake and now quote 2 dollars a roll for the same job. Had you done your homework the first time around, this mistake wouldn't have occured.

Knowing your production speeds, down to number of rolls produced per hour, on a given slitter rewinder is critical. We shall now continue with our time study.

Ramp speed:

How does one determine the best operating speed for any given grade of paper, film or foil?

This depends on several factors:

1) Lineral footage that has to be wound on the finished roll.

2) Properties of the material that is to be wound.

3) Grade of paper or film.

4) The thickness of the stock in question

5) Parent roll size and weight.

6) Other unique conditions.

These are not the only conditions, but this gives you an idea of what is involved.

Each grade of paper ( or plastic) has its' own unique properties. All these properties come into play during the rewinding cycle. The only way to determine the exact run times is an actual trial run. Ofcourse, if the plant has run a certain grade of paper in the past this becomes a moot point.

If you have never run a certain grade of paper before, don't assume that you can have the same production results.

The weight of the parent rolls will be different. The slitting knives will have to be readjusted for this new grade of paper. Core sizes may be different than what you are normally accustomed to. The job may call for a different rewind core diameter. You may not even have these different sized shafts in your plant.

The parent rolls may be seconds. They may be wound too tight or too loose. Crushed cores and other defects in the parent rolls may bring the plant to a complete stop. The job you thought was going to take 2 hours might end up being a 2 day nightmare.

If you, as the owner or the plant manager ignore all these points and go ahead and quote a price, you have to live with the results.

Standard operating procedures:

Every job that comes in has to have a master work sheet. This master work sheet doesn't have to look like the IRS tax return form. But try to address all the points listed above and then some. The form should be signed off by the estimator, the receiving manager and the machine operator before the quote is sent out to the customer.

This is Dr. Winder saying bye bye......Live long and prosper.

Slitters: Increased speed: Myth. Chapter 35

2004-06-28T10:29:00.000-07:00

Increasing the slitter rewinder's speed:

...We will continue our discussion in this post. Plant managers and converting plant owners make the common mistake of equating speed with increased production. In the last example we had a roll with 500 lineal feet of paper. If your slitter rewinder has a top speed of 500 feet a minute, that doesn't mean you can wind this roll in one minute.

Imagine yourself sitting in a sports car with a top speed of 200 m.p.h. You are at a stop light waiting for the light to turn green. The next stop light is 500 feet away.
The sensible thing to do would be to start out real slow and then speed up. Once you are at a safe distance from the next stop light you start slowing down and then come to a full stop at the stop light.

Slitter rewinders have to be operated in the same way. The machine starts out real slow, picks up speed and then about a 100 feet from the end it ( the winder) starts to slow down. It comes to a dead stop at precicely 500 feet, because that is what the customer wants...a roll with 500 feet of paper on it.

In technical terms here is how it goes..... Machine has a "soft start" function built into the motor controls. The soft start assures that the machine cycle starts out smoothly without any sudden jerks. Any sudden jerking might break the web or introduce wrinkles or soft spots in the web. In addition this allows the operator to make sure that everthing is starting out as planned. In case of a problem, the machine can be shut down without too much waste.

Once the machine starts in the soft start mode, it takes a couple of seconds and then goes into the "acceleration" mode. Speed starts to pick up and then reaches the "ramp speed". Ramp speed is the optimum speed at which the winder can run, based on the stock being run and the actual lineal footage in question. Please note, "ramp speed" is not the "top speed". Ramp speed is simply the best speed for the job at hand.

Once the ramp speed is achieved, the "deacceleration mode" kicks in. This is the point at which the motor starts to slow down, smoothly. Just like the car driver starts to "slow down" before the next stop light. This slowing down is the "deacceleration mode". A good driver will do this without any jerking or "hitches". Controlled deacceleration plays a vital role in the quality of the finished product.

Let us look at this in slow motion.

1) Machine starts out real slow ( soft start). Paper starts to wind around the core. This cycle takes about 5-8 seconds. This can always vary depending on operator expertise.

2) Machine starts to accelerate slowly and then reaches ramp speed. The acceleration cycle may take another 3-8 seconds.

3) Machine reaches ramp speed. It continues to run at this speed till the signal to slow down is given.

4) Machine goes into the deacceleration mode. This takes about 5-10 seconds, depending on the ramp speed.

5)Machine comes to a full stop. The brake module had been activated at the deacceleration mode and now it applies the final brake.

We will examine each aspect of this cycle as a function of time and actual lineal footage wound.

This is Dr. Winder saying bye bye. Live long and prosper.

Winders, Increased speed: Myth: Chapter 34

2004-06-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

Does increasing speed on a slitter winder translate into increased production?

Answer: Depends on the application and the product in question.

Billions of dollars are spent by the aeronautical industry on R&D, to increase the speed of its jets. As we approach the speed of sound, a different set of problems arise.
The same is true for the automobile industry. Billions are spent on car design and fuel efficiency. There are sports car on the road that boast 1,000 H.P engines and top speeds in excess of 200 m.p.h. If the legal speed limit on our highways is 55 to 65 m.p.h. all this extra horse power is a total waste. Yet people who have the means still buy these sports car.

Slitter rewinders are not in the same league as jets or cars. Yet increasing speed has become the holy grail of paper mills and converting plants. Let us look at this in some detail, with actual examples.

Counter rolls:

In the last post, I showed how the plant increased production by about 20% without retrofitting or touching the actual slitter rewinder. We will stick with counter rolls in this example.

We take a 12 inch wide counter roll, wound on an inch and half core, with 500 lineal feet per roll. On a 65 inch wide slitter rewinder you can get a maximum of 5 rolls per cycle (5 x 12= 60 inches). The top speed of this winder was about 250 feet per minute. To make calculations easy, it would take about 2 minutes per cycle to wind a 500 foot roll. Wrong!

Imagine that you are in your car waiting for the stop light to turn green. The distance to the next stop light is 500 feet. Assume there is no speed limit. But here is the catch. You must come to a full stop, without crossing the line at the next stop light.
If you start out by burning rubber and hit the pedal to the metal, you will need extra heavy duty brakes and a parachute to come to a full stop. This will be a short, violent
and brutal drive. The strain on the engine, burning tires and other stresses will take a heavy toll on the car.

In a slitting rewinding operation you can't start out like a bat out of hell. The web will break. Before the cycle begins, the web has to be threaded and wound on the core.
The operator has to check to make sure that everything is in perfect alignment. There are no wrinkles: the web path is true: The core is in perfect position: etc. This takes the operator anywhere from 10 -15 seconds or more. The operator also has to load the cores on the rewind shaft and set the shaft in position. This takes another 30-60 seconds. In this example we are using only one operator.

Once the cores are loaded and all inspection checks have been made, the process begins. If we add all the time so far, we have spent anywhere from a minute to two minutes and we haven't even started yet!!!

Soft Start:

The machine has to start out real slow. This slow start allows the operator time to see if everything is going as planned. In addition it allows the web to start in motion and overcome any inertia problems. If something goes wrong at this stage, the operator hits the stop button. This saves a lot of material from being wasted, if the cycle has to be restarted from scratch. Had you started full blast, you would have wasted several hundred feet of paper. The less waste you have the more profitable it is. Obvious.

The old time winders did not have this automatic slow start feature. Several different schemes were used for this "soft start" procedure. This was an art and it took the operators months of trial and error to learn. I am sure you can see the amount of waste during this training period not to mention the drop in production.

Learning this "soft start trick" actually took a lot longer than a few months. Each grade of paper had it's own unique properties. Hence, what worked on one grade of paper did not work on a different grade of paper.

So far we have seen that about 2 minutes have gone by and we haven't even started the operation. We shall continue to explore this in our next post.

Till then, live long and prosper.

Unwind Stand, Increase your production speed: Chapter 33

2004-06-26T14:50:00.000-07:00

Analysing slitter rewinders piece by piece:

I was called into a plant that was making counter rolls on one of their rewinders. These rolls varied in width from 6 inch wide to 18 inches wide. All finished rolls had about 600 lineal feet of paper. Each roll was rewound on an inch and half core. The machine in question was a 65 inch wide Cameron duplex slitter rewinder from the early fifties.

The plant manager was utterly frustrated with the number of rolls that were being produced per shift. My mission was to recommed any design changes that would increase production.

Conditions:

I had to work with what they had. They had no desire to buy a different machine. They loved this old clunker. I was quite amused by this, but I went along with what the boss-man wanted. The boss-man had rather modest goals. A 10% increase in production would be enough to make him happy.

Dr. Winder analyses this problem:

First of all, this was the wrong machine for the job. Secondly, this was an old clunker that had a top speed of about 300 feet a minute. Any faster and the machine may fall apart due to the vibrations. Third, they had very limited resources and didn't want to spend too much money. Keeping the above points in mind, I went to work.

The parent rolls coming into the plant were seconds. These were rolls that had been rejected by the mill for one reason or another. The plant could buy these rolls at scrap prices. However, the finished rolls fetched top dollar. The profit margin on these rolls was extremely high.

Rejected rolls from a mill are rejected for good reason. The rolls are either wound too tight or too loose. The cores may have gotten crushed or the roll was dropped and damaged. Water damage etc, there are quite a few reasons why these rolls are rejected. The point is that this is all good material. There is nothing wrong with the paper.

These rejected rolls weighed anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000 pounds each. The forklift operator would pick up a roll using a roll clamp and "steer" this into the unwind stand. This was pretty hairy . One wrong move and the forklift could easily do some serious damage to the winder. Roll-changes took about 20- 30 minutes from start to finish. This was not counting the crushed core repair or the "wet and damaged material" waste cycle removal times.

A simple overhead crane system was installed that took care of loading the rolls on to the unwind stand. This was easier, safer and much quicker than loading by forklift. Time to load the new roll was cut down to about 8 minutes versus 20 to 30 minutes using the forklift method. This simple retrofit boosted production by about 25%. The plant manager was beaming from ear to ear.

Production of these rolls could be increased 20 fold if they used the right equipment to begin with. Notice....no changes were made to the unwind stand or the winder.

Live long and prosper....till the next post

The case of the pesky paint sticks: Chapter 32

2004-06-25T08:53:00.000-07:00

Increasing Production. Simple Retrofits:

We have been talking about the survival of the converting industry in to-day's climate.
We have also established that we (American manufacturers) can not compete with the Third World countries based on wage rates, taxation structures and all the other handicaps.
That leaves us with only one option and that is to be more productive. We have to produce more per hour to reduce our manufacturing costs.

Let's be realistic:

I could start doing some arcane mathematical calculations to prove certain assumptions. However, we want to keep this as simple as we can. Let's say that a simple 'paint stick'
costs one cent a piece. These paint sticks are made in China or India. We ignore all transportation and shipping costs. The fact remains that these paint sticks cost a cent a piece in the USA. Most times , when you buy a can of paint you can pick up a few of these paint sticks for free. These paint sticks have a nice logo or the paint manufacturers name or the hardware store's name imprinted on them. This logo can be one color or two color or three colors.

There are certain standards that these paint sticks have to meet. They have to be nice and smooth with no sharp edges. Secondly, they have to have some structural integerity.
You can use only certain kind of woods to make these paint sticks. This in a nutshell shall serve as our first example.

Obviously, if these paint sticks are selling for a cent a piece, the manufacturing cost is even lowerer. Let's say that if you bought these paint sticks directly from China your net cost would be half a cent per piece.

You are an American manufacturer. One of the products that you make is paint sticks. Suddenly you notice that your buyers are not buying this product. It doesn't take you too long to find out why. You were selling these paint sticks for 5 cents a piece and barely making any profit on them. So you call an emergency staff meeting to discuss this disaster. After hashing this over for a week or two you still have no idea about what to do.

It is at this point that you realise that you need outside help. Dr. Winder is called in....

The Doctor is in:
When I showed up at the plant and sat down with the management team, I was presented with all kinds of pie charts, production figures, manufacturing methods....you get the picture....
After looking at these charts etc. I asked "what is the cost of your raw wood"? No-one at the plant had figured this out. Calculators came out and in a very short period it was determined that the cost of the raw material was almost 2 cents per piece!! Just to convert the raw logs into paint sticks cost 2 cents a piece. I looked at the boss man and told him he could not compete with China or India. That was it. I was done.

All cost figures etc given in the above example are all made up to illustrate a point. I don't look forward to some bean counter sending me e-mails to point this out.

We shall continue.....in future posts. Till then, live long and prosper.

Slitter rewinder : Chapter 31

2004-06-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

How to increase production:

The utter lack of vision at some converting plants never ceases to amaze me. Wrong machines are used. The job could be run much easier and faster only if the right machine was used. When probed for answers as to why a certain job is being run on a particular machine, all kinds of nin-compoopish answers are given.

Rule number one:

Use the right piece of equipment for the job. You can limp along using the wrong machine for a while. Sooner or later, you are going to lose this segment of the business to someone else. Most of the time this blunder is made by the owner, however , there are times when this decision is made by the plant manager. No-one likes to be told that they are making a big mistake. The pesky "ego" factor comes into play.

Rule number two:

Don't be shy about getting an outside opinion.

If you do decide to call in an outside specialist, don't tie up his hands. Give him full rein to find all areas of weakness. Let him know that there are no sacred cows. If he sees a problem with management, so be it. Spare no-one. Allow the specialist to do his job unhindered.

Why call in outside help if you know all the answers? Don't wait until it is too late.

We shall continue with this in future posts. Till then live long and prosper.

Slitter Rewinder: Chapter 30

2004-06-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

Retrofitting slitter rewinders for increasing production:

A converting plant has to be on the cutting edge of technology to survive in this climate. There is no way an American manufacturer can compete with India or China. Labor costs in China are reportedly 65 cents an hour! India is not too far behind as far as hourly "slave" wages are concerned.

Add to this the taxation situation. State taxes, Federal taxes, real estate taxes, sales tax, fuel surcharge, heating costs and the list goes on and on. Insurance costs are another big factor. Ofcourse, none of these "safety" costs are an issue with third world countries.

The poor countries do not have any of these costs to consider. This is something we will discuss in another post. For now, let us concentrate on increasing production. As you can see, we face a daunting task indeed. This is not a level playing field. American manufacturers are in a do or die situation.

Cutting costs:

There is only so much cost cutting one can do. You can lower your thermostats and freeze your workers. This will save a few bucks a year. You can reduce your waste factor to almost zero. Even after you cut all your costs down to the bone, you are still in a no win situation.

There is only one thing you can do, and that is to increase production. Even this increased production may not be enough to offset the cost differential between overseas production costs and domestic costs. However , we cannot just sit around twiddling our thumbs, hoping that the Politicans will do something about this sad situation. The Politicans are touting "job creation" in the service sector. These "minimum wage" paying jobs are sending us back to the stone age. Next thing we will see is horse and buggies all over our landscape.

Slitter rewinder : Chapter 29

2004-06-22T10:12:00.000-07:00

How to increase net profit margins:

Companies spend millions of dollars on advertising, to try to increase market share. The small converting plants can not afford to spend that kind of money on advertising. Having stated the obvious , let's look at different ways a small company can increase its' bottom line.

As I mentioned in my last post, a slight increase in production has a dramatic effect on the net profit figures. It is incumbent upon the owner to dedicate all the resourses he has on increasing production. The first place to start is by breaking down the production figures for each piece of equipment in the plant. As an example let's say Slitter no.1 produces 100 rolls per shift. This should be broken down to rolls produced per hour. Exact operating expense should also be calculated and broken down to cost of operation per hour basis. This has to be done for each and every piece of production equipment in the plant. Once these figures are calculated, it is simple
to arrive at "profit per hour" per unit.

Important:

If a machine sits idle, it is not making any profit for the plant. However, this should not become an obsession. There will be times that certain machines will not be in operation for one reason or another. The machine operators should be trained to run several different machines in the plant. In fact the best operators should be able to operate every converting machine on the floor. If your plant has "specialized operators" each dedicated to one machine only, then you could be headed for trouble. As a matter of fact you will pay dearly for this mistake.

Primma Donnas:

Every small converting plant has a few machine operators that suffer from this "primma donna" syndrome. Mostly, these are older guys who have been running the same antique winder for 20 years, plus. It is my experience that you can not change these "fixated" personalities.

Old farmers suffer from this malady as well. They will fuss and tend to an antique 1945 Ford tractor. They are in love with this tractor. It is their baby. It doesn't matter to the farmer that it takes him 2 weeks to till a field. This same field could be tilled in 4 hours using newer equipment. What's the rush?

This attitude and mindset is fine if you are the owner of the plant. However , if you are working for someone else, then this attitude will sink the whole company.

Resistance to change is the biggest stumbling block to innovation. To increase production this issue has to be addressed.

Slitter Rewinder: Chapter 28

2004-06-21T10:31:00.000-07:00

Economic Analysis: Reasons for deciding to buy a used slitter rewinder:

Actually, it is quite easy to determine whether you need a new slitter rewinder or not.
Let's say that the old faithful clunker of a slitter that you presently use generates a 100 rolls a day. As per our last example, we also see that the converting plant is generating a decent profit. We have already gone through the accounting analysis of hiring a new salesman.

Now let's examine how we can increase our production. Any increase in production will have a direct bearing on the bottom line. Since no new man-power is to be added to the staff, everything else will remain constant. Your operating costs, rent, heat , light etc will stay the same. Any increase in production will increase the net profit figures.

A mere 10% increase in production will have a dramatic effect on the net profit figure. This slight increase in production can actually double your net profit! look at the advantages of doing this. There has been no increase in costs. Your total expenses have remained the same, but your profits have doubled.

This is a no-brainer. Yet, I come across companies all the time that have blinders on and are utterly oblivious to this simple fact. CHS is missing.

By buying a new slitter rewinder ( a used machine will do nicely, thank you) that produces 10 more rolls a day versus your old slitter rewinder, you have doubled your profits.

Survival Tactics: Chapter 27

2004-06-20T09:44:00.008-07:00

Boosting productivity:

In the last post we explored options for increasing profits. All things being equal, the only way to boost profits is to increase productivity. Hiring more people to increase production is not really the answer. If the bottom line ( net profits) remain the same increasing the work force is a moot point.

How to increase production:

This is the easiest and yet the most difficult decision a plant owner has to make. The difficult part is the owner's mind set. A converting plant will not give any thought to hiring an additional salesman or hiring additional machine operators. An accounting analysis relating to additional man power has already been addressed in the last post.
However, when it comes time to make the decision to buy a new piece of equipment, often times the decision makers tie themselves up into knots. This process need not be too difficult, if a little research is done in advance.

The only way to increase productivity in a converting plant is to have the right machines for the job at hand.

This is where the nightmares begin. The plant workers resent any kind of change. They have grown used to doing things the old fashioned way. There is a pecking order that is well established in the plant. Any change in operating procedures will be fought tooth and nail. Iam sure you all know the routine. Pretty soon the union gets involved and threats of strike may be in the air.

Taking our example from the previous posts, it takes the master lathe operator 15 minutes to sharpen a drill bit. A fully automated drill sharpening machine can sharpen the same drill bit in 15 seconds. Plus it is safer, faster and idiot proof. Anyone can be taught to sharpen drill bits in less than 15 minutes. In addition the drill bits are sharpened perfectly, everytime. This indeed is a sore point of contention for the old master lathe operator. He feels impotent. He feels threatened. His job is on the line.

Every converting plant owner should be well aware of this fact. If the plant owner is not aware of this fact, then he is doomed to mediocrity. In most third world countries any automation is highly resisted. Since automation means reduction in jobs, the Governments will step in and actually ban the importation of such machinery.

This resistance to change is not a natural instinct but a force of habit. If you get up at 7a.m. every morning and suddenly the job calls for you getting up at 3a.m., this will make your whole life miserable. This state of misery will only last a few months, till your body acclimatises to this new routine. The same principle applies to getting new machinery. The operators dread this as this is akin to getting up at 3 in the morning. In addition there is the fear factor. The experienced operator feels like a total rookie. Yet this too shall pass.

So, the plant owner not only has to adjust to these new realities himself, but it is his job to make sure that the rest of the troops are with him. He has to lead the workers and assure them that there aren't any job or pay cuts in the works. The new machines will be faster and easier to operate.

Survival Tactics: Chapter 26

2004-06-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

Allocating resources:

.....Continued from the last post....

The small converting plant in the last post shows that it is generating a $100,000 net profit per year. We examined what would happen if an additional sales man was hired. As the owner of this plant certain decisions have to be made. Should things continue the way they are? After all, the company is showing a decent profit. This is a personal decision and the owner is in a best position to make this call.

However, if the management decides to expand the operation, careful attention has to be paid to the fundamental operating procedures. Doubling the size of the work force has to be carefully analysed. What's the point of doubling your size if your net profit drops or remains the same? Each new member added to your staff has to be justified. If you fall in the "public sector" mind set and start hiring just to look bigger, then you are headed for a major disappointment.

Increasing profits:

Let's set a simple goal. Our mission is to double the net profit for this converting plant. How do we do that?
1) We can increase our price for finished goods by 10%. On a million dollar sales figure this comes to an extra $100,000. Mission accomplished. This is easier said than done. If the going rate for sheeting is $200 dollars a ton, by raising your price to 220 dollars a ton (10% increase in price) you might end up losing all your customers. This only works for the State Government and the Public sector. They keep raising prices and there is nothing the public can do about it. They have no accountability or fear of losing their jobs. They live in a World that is immune to any economic common sense. In addition they have no competition. For them there is no day of reckoning. They produce nothing. They just make rules for the rest of the private sector.

As we can see raising prices to double your bottom line is not going to work. So we now have to come up with plan "B".

2) Reduce wages:

This is another brilliant innovation....this cut-in-wages...to save costs. If Mr. Henry Ford had followed this concept, I hate to imagine where we would be today. United airlines is in big trouble. The union made billions of dollars in wage concessions...yet United is losing millions of dollars a day. Note, the upper management got bonuses!! The sacrifices were made by your daily lowely workers.

In the early eighties I bought a computer powered by a 8088 microprocessor. The clock speed was 4KHZ. Hard drive was 10Megs. I paid over $6,000 dollars for this clunker in 1983 dollars. Today, Iam using a computer that runs millions of times faster than the 8088 machine and with the printer and all I paid $500 for this. The computer industry sets the standard for the rest of the World.
Cutting wages is not an option....not yet anyway. But the way our politicans are going I wouldn't be surprised if wages went down to 65 cents an hour.

3) Make your workers more productive:
Well folks, China had forced labor. Russia killed millions in labor camps. Overtime laws are being changed. In effect the changes are being introduced so that the employers doesn't have to pay overtime. Let the masses slave. We have more 'fat cats" to feed. Tax cuts are enacted, yet fees are raised. End result..we end up with less than before these changes were enacted. And the deficits keep sky rocketing...pension funds are depleted, social security teeters on the edge of bankruptcy....
American workers have less free time than any other western nation. Both the husband and wife work...yet this is barely enough to eke out a decent living.
To make workers more productive you have to provide them with the right tools.

Survival tactics: Chapter 25

2004-06-18T09:53:00.000-07:00

Economics 101:

Common horse sense.

The number of years one spends in college and a string of degrees after ones name has nothing in common with what I call " common horse sense". All top notch athletes basically go through the same training routine. Yet you get a few that are heads and shoulders above the rest. These "stars" have something extra and this is attributed to their unique genetic make-up.

The same principle applies to CHS ( common horse sense). You are either born with it or you try to cultivate it. Again, the guy born with it will have an edge over the one who has cultivated it. Let us now explore this in some detail.

Example no.1

Let's take a small converting company that does a million dollars in sales per year. (gross sales). Assume that the net profit is 10% of gross sales. That means that this company is making a net profit of $100,000 per year. The owner sees that things are looking good and that he should expand. To this end he starts out by hiring a new salesman. The going rate for a good salesman is $50,000 a year. Add all the travel expenses, insurance, car expense, other expense etc. and this adds another 30,000 dollars
for a total cost of $80,000 a year for this new salesman.

To remain at the same level ( $100,000 net profit) the company now has to generate an additional $800,000 in business. This is almost double the production levels of the previous year. Think about it. You have to double your output....yet nothing really changed as far as the bottom line is concerned. To double your production two things have to happen. One your machine operators suddenly start producing twice the product in the same time or you start a second shift. By starting a second shift you have to figure out the additional man power and operating costs.
Assume your labor cost per year is $500,000 a year. Starting a second shift will add another $500,000 to your costs.

Ignoring this simple fact is the leading cause of failure. Owners lacking this CHS will go ahead with hiring a new salesman without any thought to realities on the ground.

Hiring a new salesman can actually put you out of business. Think about it. The rule of thumb for hiring a new salesman should be as simple as ABC. The salesman should generate enough business to pay his own expenses plus contribute a hefty chunk to the bottom line. If this is not happening in your business, then you are in serious trouble.

First things first:

The most obvious place to start is on your production floor. Analyse everything. How much is each slitter rewinder producing per shift. Do these calculations for every piece of equipment in your plant. You should have these facts on your fingertips. For example Sheeter no.1 generates $200 per hour net profit. Reduce every machine to net profit per hour basis. This will give you a vivid picture of how everything in the plant is functioning.

The best way to improve the bottom line is to increase production. How do you double production? Triple it? Increase it 10 fold? Is this possible? The answer is a resounding yes.

Plant dynamics: Chapter 24

2004-06-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

The Emperor has no clothes....

Not so long ago, the person who picked up your garbage was called the "garbage collector". Now a days he is known as a "sanitation engineer". No matter what title is bestowed upon this person, the fact remains that he still collects garbage. Couching the truth by twisting words fools no one. The public sector has carried this "sham" to the height of absurditity. Titles upon titles, subtitles and other strange names are given to simple everyday jobs. The disease has spread to the private sector as well.

The Public sector employees keep adding sub-titles and multiplying. The job that can easily be done by one person is now split up in such a way that it takes 10 to do it now.
Forms are generated. The instructions for filling these forms are so convulated that no one can understand them. This beast keeps growing.

Hanging on to power;

Anyone who suggests a reduction in budget for these bloated bureaucracies is targeted.
Politicans dare not touch any of these sacred cows. And the public suffers.

The private sector bears the burden for all these new agencies. For the first time in American history, there are more people working in the public sector than the private sector. In other words 47% of the people in this country support the other 53%. This ratio is getting wider and wider. You don't need a looking glass to see that this system is doomed to fail.

There are lot of people in this country who are well aware of these facts. Every business-man knows this. He sees this cancer spreading, yet he is utterly powerless to stop it. The big multi-national corporations are reeling like drunkards. They are in bed with the politicans. Special tax breaks and other perks are enacted into law that give these giants special treatment.

Folks, for a business to succeed in this climate requires extra effort. You have to increase production to survive. There is nothing you can do about fixed costs. Your insurance costs will keep going up....this is totally out of your control. Taxes, both State and Federal will keep eating up to half of the fruits of your labor. Real estate taxes will keep going up. Energy costs will keep rising. Raw material prices will keep going up. Every step you take will cost you more. Tuition costs, medical expenses etc., all going up. It is indeed a depressing picture.

America's strength lays in its middle class. The gap between the rich and the poor is becoming wider and wider. This "wealth divide" is the root cause of all the third world countries woes. In the 3rd world you have the super rich and the poor. There is no middle class. When the middle class disappears the country falls apart. The patient has been sucked dry. There is no more blood left to be sucked. That's when the vampires feel the first pangs of hunger. Then the vampires turn on each other and the biggest , baddest vampires take over. There is no rule of law. The vampires make their own laws.

Pray thee, tell me of any farmer who won't tend to his fields. Or one who won't save seeds for the next seasons crop. Tell me of a farmer who won't tend to his animals. Does he not work 7 days a week? Does he spend more than he earns? Is he not a good neighbor?
If you can name one farmer who does not do all these things, then he is not a farmer. And if he is , he will waste his fathers heritage and good name.
The very Earth will curse him. The cries of pain of his unfed animals will reach the very doors of heavens.
But what about the farmer who does everything right? He looks after his flock, tends to his crops and works 7 days a week. " Thou shall sow, but strangers shalt reap thy fields". See any connection?

13 yards of concrete: Chapter 23

2004-06-16T09:17:00.000-07:00

Before joining the union I worked for a small construction outfit that built houses, duplexes and apartments. This was a non-union shop. These were bad times as far as the economy went. I was thankful that I had a job.

Physically, I was fit as a fiddle. This was back breaking work and by the end of the day, there were times when my muscles ached. At night I would go to the library and read all the books on different construction methods and techniques. In a couple of months I had read every book on construction techniques that was available at our local library. With my maths background I had no trouble understanding the simple formulas for calculating load bearing walls, steps and risers and how to lay them out. The different roof styles, laying out bird's mouth cuts and angles. During the day all these principles were put to practice and reinforced in my mind.

Mr. Keys was my foreman at this time. He was great guy and an excellent carpenter. During our lunch breaks I would ask him all kinds of questions. He enjoyed this.

The layout guy:

It's the lead carpenters job to do "the lay-out" work. This is where every opening for doors and windows is layed out. The length of the walls, corners, headers, cripples, stairs etc are all laid out. This information is taken off the master blue-print.
Mr. Key's soon realised that I was really good at laying out the grids etc. Next thing you know, I was made the lead carpenter. I also got a dollar an hour raise in my miserable pay scale.

The size of our crew varied depending on the size of the job. On smaller jobs there would be only 4 of us with one guy acting as the foreman. On big apartment complexes there would be 12 of us split up into 3 crews. That meant there were 3 fore-men on bigger job sites.

My nightmare begins:
When the news hit town that I had been "promoted" to be the lead-man and that I had been awarded an extra dollar per hour in my pay scale, some folks didn't like it. There were guys who had been on the job a lot longer than me. The fact that I was making more than some of these veterans was a sore point. My life became a living hell. A few guys would rave and rant all day aiming their venom directly at me.

I went over to see Mr. Keys...and told him what was going on. He was well aware of this and told me this was to be expected. He had no other words of wisdom for me....I was on my own.

Things went from bad to worse. I dreaded going to work. I put up with this out of necessity....I needed the job. It was at this time that I started to look for a different job and by a miracle I ended up with the union.

As I look back at my life , I realise that every disaster was a blessing in disguise. The good Lord has a strange way of nudging one in the right direction. Years later I would run into these guys....they were still carpenters....and I would say a silent prayer for them.

People abhor change. So beware when instituting new policies or getting new guys into your plant. The old management will resort to every dirty trick in the book to sabotage your new policies and changes.

Machine Designs: Dos and Don'ts: Chapter 22

2004-06-15T10:12:00.001-07:00

13 yards of concrete:

When I first started out as a journeyman millwright and a journeyman carpenter things were not going so good. The economy was in a recession, interest rates were sky high and inflation was out of control. I was the lowest member on the totem pole, based on years of service. Hence the only jobs I was sent to were the ones that no one else wanted. I had to drive over a 100 miles one way. I was always given the hardest and the dirtiest jobs. Most of the time I was knee deep in muck and mud, laying out the foundations. As soon as the concrete was poured and we had a nice smooth, dry surface to work on, I was sent to the next hole. Wisconsin winters are brutal. The worst thing that you can do is to get your feet wet during winter. I learnt that real fast.

Seemed to me that everyone in our union was related! We had nephews, uncles, cousins, fathers, second cousins, brother-in-laws etc. Most were from local farm families. These were all big, burly guys. Simple country folks. Conversations always centered around hunting and fishing. Curious by nature, I would always ask questions that seemed dumb to these guys. Questions like how much milk does an average cow give. Ofcourse, I got 20 different answers from 20 different guys. Questions related to different crops, yields per acre, price per acre, fertilizers and how it was applied and when was the best time to apply manure. Tractors and farm implements. Bee-keeping....endless questions.

Until I showed on the scene, no one had discussed these topics. They all knew ( or thought they knew) the answers to such simple questions. A simple question would lead into a lively debate and at times tempers flared over differences of opinions. Most of these guys were high school drop outs. The few that had finished high school could barely read or write. But, I really liked these guys as they stated their biases and opinions unabashed. A spade was a spade. There was no "politically correct" mumbo jumbo.

And they came to know me. I made a lot of friends, but I also made a lot of enemies. At this time I was also teaching night school at the local Technical institute. One of the subjects I taught was blue print reading. The fact that I could read blue prints was perceived as threat by a few foremen on the job-sites. I was always "tested" by the crew. Once the forms were set-up, I was always asked how much concrete was needed to fill the void. To me this was as easy as ABC, and I would do the simple calculations mentally and say 6.75 yards or whatever the answer happened to be. The foremen on our job sites could not do these calculations mentally. They used slide rulers. This was another ploy to impress the average millwright.

Mr. Hugh was the foreman on one of our job sites. Hugh was about 63 years old with a bushy head of snow white hair, rosy red cheeks and a twinkle in his eyes. He was a sweet gentle soul. He always reminded me of Santa Claus. We got along perfectly. Everytime Hugh had a problem understanding the blue prints, he called me aside and I would either render a 3D drawing or explain the whole concept to him. I made sure that the rest of gang didn't know this out of respect for Hugh.

We started at 7 in the morning and worked till 3p.m in the afternoon. At around 2.45p.m. all work would come to a stop. Everyone started picking up their tools and putting stuff away. By 3p.m. the whole crew was headed for the gate. Since I was the youngest and the junior most member, I was assigned tasks that I had to do before I left. So I was usually the last one to leave.

Once you start pouring concrete you don't stop till the job is done. The job required that there be at least one carpenter on hand while the concrete was being poured. 90% of the time this meant that I had to stay on the job site till the concrete crew were finished. Then I had to go around and install all the key-ways and other bolts etc., while the concrete was still green. None of the senior members cherished this task. It meant crawling up and down scaffoldings and ladders carrying all kinds of steel bolts and key-ways. I didn't mind doing this at all and so this task was left for me almost all the time. In addition I had to make sure that all nuts and bolts holding the forms were secure and that no critical bolt patterns got shifted during the pour.

It was around 2.30 p.m. one hot afternoon, when we finished forming a section of a retaining wall. Mark, who was the superintendent, came by with his slide ruler. It was his job to order the concrete. I was standing on the top of this wall. And without thinking I shouted out, "Hey Mark we need 13 yards of concrete". Everyone on the job site heard me. Mark utterly ignored me and proceeded to pull out his slide ruler. After about 5 minutes on the slide ruler he shouted out, " We need 10 yards of concrete". Everyone heard this.

By 3 p.m. when the concrete trucks arrived, everyone was gone except the concrete crew and the lone carpenter. Around 7 p.m. the concrete trucks ran out of concrete and we were still about 10 inches below grade. The concrete guys were furious. One of them went and fetched Mark from his office trailer. We needed 3 more yards of concrete to finish the job. It is well past 7 p.m. by now. The concrete plant was shut down for the day. The wall had to be poured in one shot. Mark made some emergency calls. The concrete plant had to be re-opened and 3 miserable yards of concrete had to be custom mixed. It was almost 10.30 p.m. before the 3 yards of concrete arrived and we could finish pouring the wall. By the time I finished putting in all the key-ways and bolts, it was past midnight.

13 yards of concrete:

Next morning when I showed up at the job site , I was summoned to Mark's trailer. Mark handed me the "pink slip". He didn't say a word. I picked up my tools and left the job-site.

Machine Design: Dos and Don'ts: Chapter 21

2004-06-14T10:01:00.000-07:00

The mouse trap powered car:
One day my son came home with a mouse trap. I think he was about 11 years old at that time. The teacher had told the class that they had to design a car that was powered by a mouse trap. There could be no motors or springs or other power-assist mechanisms, otherwise the project would be disqualified.
Each student had to work on his own. The class was not divided into small groups as was the case in some of the previous projects.
This had been an on going project over the years at this high school. The object was simple. The car that went the furthest won first prize and all the bragging rights. In addition the winning car was placed in a show case at the high school, with the winners name, proudly displayed.
My hat off to whoever came up with this brilliant idea. It was a simple idea, yet not as easy as it sounded. Since all the previous winning designs were already on display, the kids had a pretty good idea about what to do. The problem was if the kids followed the existing winning designs, they would end up with the same results.
I followed my son's progress with great interest. He prototyped a few designs but wasn't too happy with the results. He needed some wheels. So I made some light weight wheels using some 1/8 inch plastic. He didn't like these wheels at all.
He finally started using AOL disks. We kept getting these dumb AOL disks in the mail by the hunderd. These were perfectly round, stiff and light weight. Plus they added some color to the project. For the rear wheels he used 2 LPs that he bought at the local thrift store. Finally , the project was done and he was kind-of-glad that this nightmare was over.
Confession time:
I must confess I couldn't stop thinking about this mouse-trap powered car. Designs, calculations, ratios etc., flooded my mind. I wanted to "guide" my kid in the right design direction. I gave him hints and suggestions about using pulleys and how they worked. I think I drove him nuts. It was my wife who finally suggested that I stay out of the kid's project and let him design it on his own. "How else will he learn" she said.
She was right. It took a great amount of self-control on my part to keep my mouth shut from that point on. And I learnt a valuable lesson about raising kids. Let the kids learn from their own mistakes. (Easier said than done...sigh).
The Day of the competition:
On the day of the competition, we all looked at the entries. It was obvious that 90% of the entries were not designed by 11 year old kids. Some frames were made on CNC controlled milling machines. There was no way an 11 year old could have produced these results. The proud fathers had this "look" on their faces, some were even smirking....
and the competition began.....
How to spot a winner...
In a corner, all by himself, stood a skinny little kid, with thick horn rimmed glasses. He was all alone. Neither his mother nor his father had shown up for this competition. He was being raised by a single mother....His mother was probably working that day...
He was cradling his Mouse-trap car in his arms. The whole car was made out of styrofoam, including the wheels. He had carved the whole thing using nothing more than a sharp utility knife. There was something different about this car....
Everybody had mounted the mouse trap on top of their contraptions. This skinny kid had his mouse trap mounted at the bottom of his car. On one side of his car, he had mounted a a small section of a comb. This comb was held to-gether by two clothes pins. The comb acted like a limited slip differential..and released the power in small increments.
When the mouse trap was released, at the starting gate, the sudden power burst made the tires slip on the slick floor. Almost 50% of the power transmitted was wasted in slippage and by now the mouse spring had travelled over half its arc. Most entries had this "tire " slippage problem. In addition the weight of the car played a significant role in distance covered.
The skinny kid bent down, cranked the mouse trap and let his car go. It started to move, real slow. Unlike all the other entries, where the contraptions took off like bats out of hell, this car started out real slow. And then gently it started to gain speed. None of the power was wasted. Every ounce of the spring tension was transmitted to the the wheels in small measured doses. The tires did not slip. No energy was wasted.
The car kept going....it just kept going. There was total silence in the hall. Suddenly every body realized that this baby wasn't stopping anytime soon. The car was pretty ugly, yet there was a certain elegance in its simplicity and design. This kid had used nothing more than a carving knife, some styrofoam and 2 clothes pins...
He had put to shame all the CNC designs and the fancy paint schemes. The kid set a new record for distance travelled by a mouse-trap powered car. And he had designed this all by himself. His design was a radical departure from anything done previously.
Genius is a class unto itself.

The sorry state of affairs: Chapter 20

2004-06-13T11:59:00.000-07:00

Lack of innovations in the converting industry: continued...
Auto makers spend millions of dollars at auto shows. Every year the media is abuzz with rumors and gossip about the upcoming new models. Hundreds of magazines are devoted to the auto industry. The reasons for this are obvious. There is a market out there that can support these million dollar advertizing blitzes.
In the converting industry, we do not have a big enough market to justify this kind of expense. The lack of R and D investment by the major manufacturers of converting equipment is the biggest stumbling block to innovation. And unlike the auto industry, converting companies do not routinely buy new models every year. First of all, there aren't any new models out there and secondly the costs associated in replacing machines is quite high.
Faced with this climate converting plants have 3 options:
1) To retrofit existing equipment to increase speed.
2) To buy brand new machines in hopes of increasing production.
3) Buy used equipment.
There is a fourth option. And that is to redesign a machine in-house.
Quad Graphics started out in Wisconsin. In no time at all they became the biggest and most profitable outfits in the country. The owner of the company realized that there weren't any machines out there that could do what needed to be done. So he had machines designed to meet his needs. These were one-of-kind custom built units. No one else in the World had these machines......and the rest is history.
Innovating new designs:
Take a 1,000 blocks of granite. Take a 1,000 guys and give them a hammer and a chisel each. Their mission? To carve out a human figure resembling "David". How many of these guys are going to produce anything that even resembles a human form?
This same principle applies to machine designers. I have seen companies waste tons of money designing "Rube Goldbergs". The task is given to some-one in the plant to design some contraption that will auto-mate some aspect of the production line. This is not fair to the plant guy in-charge of the mission. He has no idea what he is supposed to do, much less design a proto-type. If it's the owner who takes up this task...then there is nothing you can tell him..it's his money.
Designing machines is an art. If this is approached strictly from an engineering point of view then you end up with machines that looks like "Sherman tanks". What one needs is a lean, mean racing machine that leaves the competition in the dust..not a tank.
And just like on a racing car, careful thought has to be given to speed with which tires can be changed, spark plugs can be replaced, provisions for oil changes have to be made etc. The whole concept is to speed up every aspect of daily tasks that have to be performed to keep the car in top operating condition.
On the other hand, converting equipment is designed by the-seat-off one's pant mentality. No thought is given to the operator. The poor operator of these contraptions is the last thing on the designer's mind. If a car manufacturer followed these design rules, they wouldn't last too long.
Dr. Winder's rule no.1
The machine operator is the most important member of your staff. He can make the company millions of dollars in profit. I have seen slitter rewinders in operation , where the waste factor approached 12%! It wasn't the fault of the operator, it was a bad machine design. It all goes back to the guy sharpening drill bits by hand.

The sorry state of affairs: Chapter 19

2004-06-12T10:08:00.000-07:00

Lack of innovation in the converting industry:
If we look at the history of auto-mobile development from its' inception to the present day, we see remarkable changes. Same applies to aviation and just about every other industry except the converting and paper mill industry.
The reasons for this sad state of affairs are pretty obvious. In its heyday, the paper mills were making money hand-over-fist. Very little attention was paid to the actual machinery. Research and development were relegated to the back burner and the mills went about with their business. Lack of competition was the primary culprit.
By the 70's, cracks started to appear in this invincible paper-mill juggernaut. Rivers, lakes and ground-water contamination, air pollution and high energy costs finally stirred this beast from its slumber. By the 80's mills were closing left right and center. As usual, when things go bad, you suddenly see a frenzy of mergers and consolidations take place. Transfusing new blood into a disease ridden patient..never saves any lives. It's a total waste of good blood.
The only hope of saving this "sick" patient is to do radical surgery. Get rid of the diseased parts, replace broken bones with new titanium joints and above all "fire" the old doctor. "Do not pour new wine into old skins"..
This lack of innovation extended to the paper converting machinery manufacturers. There weren't that many manufacturers to begin with. All kinds of half baked ill conceived designs were let loose on the poor public. Some designs were so bad that they should have been used as boat anchors rather than for converting paper.
By the late 90's most of these machinery manufacturers were history. New players had jumped into the market place, but they too were having a rough time making a go. The basic design remained the same.
Imagine, if you will, if the auto mobile had not changed since the 40's. What kind of contraptions would we be driving? Sure, we could still be able to get from point A to point B, but it would take twice as long. The thought of all these clunkers clogging our highways is a nightmare. Unfortunately, our converting machines are still stuck in the dark ages.
Let's continue with our automobile example and explore this concept a little more. The race car driver is the one who puts his life on the line everytime he gets behind the wheel of a race car. He tells the engineers and pit crew about all the problems with the car. It's this feed back from the driver that allows the manufacturing team to make the necessary design changes. If, on the other hand, this driver says that every other car on the race track is faster than the one he is driving, folks we have a problem. If all the other cars are Chevys and he is driving a Ford, then he ( the driver) wants a different, faster engine or a Chevy. You can take the best driver in the USA and give him a lousy car, folks, he isn't going to win any races.
The race car seat is designed so that driver is comfortable. In addition, when seated his ( the driver's) feet should reach the pedals. Obvious. Isn't it?
If spark plugs need changing, the mechanic should be able to get at the plugs, easily and quickly. Obvious? No?
If a tire has to be replaced, it should be easy as pie. Obvious? No?
If the car needs fuel....one should be able to fuel it as fast as one can. Self evident? No?
What if new brake pads are needed?
These above mentioned points are self evident. You don't need a rocket scientist to figure them out.
Back to converting machines. Converting machines are designed by guys who have never run one in their entire lives!!! Are you getting the drift?
We will explore this further in future posts.

Buying Equipment: Chapter 18

2004-06-11T12:10:00.000-07:00

Today, we will continue from where we left of.
Penny wise pound foolish:
I had 3 guys stop in to look at some equipment. One was the owner , the other was the salesman and the third guy was the one who would actually run the machine. I guess you could classify him as the actual machine operator.
The boss man was a real gentleman. He asked a lot of questions...mostly technical questions related to the actual production speeds etc. Plus he took a lot of notes. The sales guy didn't ask too many questions. And the actual production guy didn't say a word.
After our initial meeting , which lasted a few hours, it was decided that the machine operator would come back with actual stock material and we would trial run the material. In addition I would teach the operator the basic fundamentals of the machine. We went back to the warehouse so that the boss-man could take a final look at the machine in question.
I was working on another machine at this time and there were parts laying all over the place. This machine had a whole bunch of score knives. As I disassembled these knives, I would set them on a skid. So the skid had old knife holders and rotary blades laying all over.
I junk these old blades and always put new blades on all the machines I retrofit. A few days later we test ran the machine and showed the operation guy all the ropes. He reported back to the boss-man.
The boss-man and I discussed things and the machine was sold. It was while we were getting the machine ready for shipping that I got a call from the operator. He wanted a few of those old blades. I asked him why he wanted old blades. "Well" he says "when the new blades get dull, I will replace them with these old blades". I didn't say a word, but steam was coming out of my ears.
I picked up the phone and called the boss-man. I asked the boss-man a question. "If you had a brand new car....and it needed a set of tires...would you put on used tires"? He was quite ataken back by this. The boss-man had done his homework and knew what he was buying. He knew how much money this machine would generate for the company. The operator on the other hand had a different "mind-set".
As the owner or the plant manager, you should keep these points in mind. Don't let your $10 dollar-an-hour operator make machine buying decisions for you. By all means pay attention to what the operator has to say....but you make the final decision. Don't be penny wise and pound foolish.

Buying Equipment: Chapter 17

2004-06-10T10:40:00.000-07:00

Penny wise pound foolish:
Used machinery buyers come in all shapes and sizes. Each buyer has his own "system" of making the final decision.
If it's a really big company, the decision to buy a used piece of equipment is relegated to the division manager or the plant manager. The owner of a small company generally makes the final decision. A smart plant manager is worth his weight in gold. He can save a big company millions of dollars by making smart used equipment buys. I have seen companies spend millions of dollars in buying brand new equipment. A few months later this brand new machine is shoved into a corner to gather dust. It was the wrong machine for the job. I have seen this scene played out over and over again.
A few years ago, I had gentleman come over to see me. He had set up a unique binding operation. There was nothing on the market that could do what he wanted to do. Everything was done by hand. There were over 100 employees working 3 shifts at this plant. I spent about 2 weeks observing their operation. After thinking about this for a while, I came up with an idea to automate one aspect of his operation. To keep costs down, I suggested we make one unit....a small unit, to see ..how it played out. I started out with an old machine, stripped this machine down to bare bones and started adding the features that were needed. Even though this was a proto-type, I followed my usual operating procedures. All parts stripped to bare metal. These parts were then sent out to be primed and painted. All shafts, brackets etc were sent to the plater to be either nickel plated or chrome plated. When the machine was finally assembled it was a beauty.
This machine worked better than he expected. They could do 2,000 sets an hour compared to about a 1,000 sets a day by hand. It took 2 people to run the machine. One person could run the machine but he couldn't keep up with the output. Manually, they had 8 guys doing this job. You figure out the maths and savings. I was given an order for 6 more units. As a matter of fact just about every piece of equipment they had in that plant was retrofitted or custom made by us.
This plant was bought out by a giant corporation. The owner told me, he had an offer that he couldn't refuse. He retired.
This was a great customer and over the years we had developed a very good working relationship. If anything went wrong I would go service the machines.
Once the new company took over I stopped getting any calls from them. I called the plant manager and she explained to me that it was the new company's policy to do all service work in-house.
About a year and half later , I got an emergency call from this company. One of the machine was not working and the second one was acting up. The in-house service guys couldn't fix it. So, I went over. I knew every inch of this plant, since I was the one who had set-up all these machines. In the back room I had set up up a small area, where all critical parts for these machines were stored. Special relays, limit switches, sprockets, gears etc etc. I had suggested that all critical components should be on hand to reduce down-time to a minimum. The last owner thought that this was an excellent idea.
The problem turned out to be a worn out limit switch on one of the units. In addition the encoder was on its last legs on both the machines. No problem, I thought, I will just go in the spare room and get the parts. When I went back the whole "spare" room had been turned into a break area. I couldn't see the spares anywhere. Turns out that no one knew what all this "junk" was and it got thrown out. Sigh.
I had to order replacement parts. It was at this time that I suggested to the plant manager that she order extra limit switches. "How much are they" she asked. "About $16 dollars a piece" I replied. "16 dollars" she gasped...and said no.
Penny wise pound foolish
It took two days to get the parts in. I had to make 2 trips to fix these units. So with travel time etc my labor rate was twice what it would have been...had the parts been on hand. Don't forget the down time....One hour of my labor was equal to about 6 limit switches...
Oh, by the way, the service department turned out to be a 20 year old gal. She was a farm gal who knew more about milking cows than fixing machines.

Buying Equipment: Logic: Chapter 16

2004-06-09T09:54:00.000-07:00

When I first started the business that I am in today, I was quite apprenhensive. I was the new kid on the block. The major players had been in business for many years. Some were 3rd generation companies. It is inevitable in this business that pretty soon you get to know all the players. Some of these guys had huge big warehouses full of all kinds of used equipment. They had inventory that was worth millions of dollars. 12 salesmen, 4 gals who answered the phone, accounting departments, shipping departments, overseas offices in several different countries.....you get the picture.
Here I was....a one man operation, starting with hardly any capital and no real contacts.
Observations:
The first thing I noticed was that the salesmen at these big companies had an "attitude". They always gave the impression that they were extremely busy....and that taking a call was a special favor they were bestowing upon me. They made sure that our conversation was interrupted several times. So rule number 1 at these companies was "act busy".
Second thing I realized was that these guys did not know equipment. They were salesmen. So if a client had a certain unique need, they had no idea which machine would be the most suitable. Unless, ofcourse, the client gave them the exact make and model of a machine.....well, well...
Third thing I observed was that none of them ever touched any of the machines in inventory. So if a guard was dangling...they let it dangle. Machines were left out in the open, exposed to the elements.
I suddenly realized that here was a golden opportunity staring me in the face.
I started by totally disassembling a slitter rewinder....down to the bare frame. This was a Cam 10, a 72" wide dual drum surface rewinder. The frames, guards, etc. were all sand blasted , primed and painted. All bearings were replaced with high speed needle nosed bearings. This was one of the most difficult and expensive projects, as I needed to hold exact tolerances. The next part was redoing all the idler rollers, the bed rollers, the rider roller, anvil roller, etc.
The cost of having the rollers done was a shock. If only I had a lathe....
I finally finished rebuilding this slitter rewinder. I also built a custom skid for this unit, so it could be moved without damage. I sold this unit to the first customer who came in to look at it.
Dr. Winder buy's a lathe:
It cost me over $2,000 dollars to have a simple idler roller made at the local machine shops. After much thought and calculations, I went ahead and bought a heavy duty Monarch engine lathe. As usual, I took this lathe apart and rebuilt it. This lathe paid for itself in the next winder I rebuilt. Over the years this lathe has paid for itself a 100 times over.
A decision to buy a machine should be very simple. How long before the machine pays for itself...the pay back period is the most critical element. Second, most of the time, you can save a fortune by buying a used, rebuilt piece of equipment.
Third....who to buy from and why.
OCC Orange County Choppers:
I love watching this show on TV, where the father and son team make custom bikes. When the bike is finally done..it's a work of art.
Unfortunately, I cannot do the same to slitter rewinders or sheeters. I bring the machine back or restore it as close to original as possible. Updates can readily be added, if the customer wishes ie.. latest state of the arts tension control system, shaftless unwinds, brand new disc brakes, computerized drive system etc etc.

Making Choices: Chapter 15

2004-06-08T09:41:00.000-07:00

Best laid plans of men and mice....
Sometimes in the late 70s', OPEC raised the price of oil. This was a sudden move and it caught the World by surprise. Actually, the truth of the matter is that the World powers colluded on this plan....If I take off on this tangent....we would be off the subject.
The news media and the prophets of doom jumped on this band wagon. Our wiley politicans saw this as a golden opportunity to start up a whole new agency. Jimmy Carter was the president then. He called this "the moral equivalent to war..." and with great fan fare DOE ...The Department of Energy was created. This new Department was supposed to "save" millions of barrels of oil....Needless to say, like any other Federal Agency, this DOE grew ...and grew. Within a space of two years DOE was spending well in excess of 2 billion dollars a year!!! Not a single barrel of oil had been saved. Instead, the tax payers had to shell out an extra 2 billion dollars for these paper pushers.
New laws were passed. Mandates were issued to businesses and to car makers to increase miles per gallon. While the poor ordinary folks were shovelling more and more insulation into their attics and walls, brand new office buildings and complexes were being put up to house these new DOE sub departments.
After spending millions of dollars on studies...recommendations were issued. Lower the thermostat to 63-65 degrees. This will save the country so many million barrels of oil a year. One after the other these edicts poured out of DOE. Think about this for a minute. They spent 2 billion dollars to tell us that if we lowered our thermostats to 63 degrees , we would save energy. And the 55 miles per hour speed limit was passed into law.
At the height of his power, Hitler is reported to have said " Isn't it great that the public is so stupid". And he was right.
It was at this time that I was at the University of Wisconsin Madison attending a class in Advanced Energy Management.
We had top scientists from all over the USA and Canada. Engineers, coal plant managers, utilities, steel mills, Oak Ridge, etc etc etc.
One of the projects we were given was to figure out how to save energy in the manufacturing sector. We were divided into groups...chosen by pulling names out of a hat. There were 10 of us in my group. We were given a Sears vacuum cleaner.. a brand new vacuum cleaner. Our mission? To recommend manufacturing procedures that would save energy in the actual manufacturing process. I was the youngest member of this group. I looked up to all the older members of our class. We all lived at the campus, barring a few ,who stayed at hotels. So I got to know quite a few of my "classmates". They were all good guys.
Vacuum Cleaner Disassembly:
The whole class split up into their respective work stations. We elected the oldest guy to be our group leader. All 10 of us stood around this Sears vacuum cleaner. No one said a word. Each of us had our note pads, pens and fancy calculators....and we all stared at this vacuum cleaner. Finally, our group leader asked us for suggestions. No one said a word....silence. Being the youngest member, and a total green horn , compared to the rest of the group, I too kept my tongue in check....
Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. And I suggested, we take the vacuum cleaner apart. I mean take it apart and study every nut, bolt, screw, motor, brushes ....in short rip this baby down to its components. Then we study each piece.....The group agreed...there were no arguments.
In no time at all we had this vacuum cleaner in pieces. All laid out neatly on the table. One thing I noticed....most engineers in our group wrote in caps. Plus they had beautiful hand writing. I made a mental note of that....and to this day I write in caps. There are times when my brain is going faster than my hand and I switch to scribbling. But later, there are times when I can't read my own scribbles. well,..I try.
Even my "caps" suck.
Once the vacuum cleaner was disassembled...the active discussions began. Why, they even got heated at times. There were dozens and dozens of screws, some philips, some hex nuts tons of different kinds of screws. All these screws were to hold the body of the vacuum cleaner together. The body was in 10 different pieces. Now the discussion switched to "how to make screws" by using less energy. I mean this dicussion went on and on....and we hadn't even touched on any of the rest of the parts staring at us.
And....then....as I looked at these guys....a thought suddenly dawned on me. This was utter stupidity.
The Kid Speaks:
I raised my hand....Finally when they all stopped talking, I said "Why are we wasting our time talking about screws"? As I said this , I reached over and swept all the screws that were the topic of discussion, off the table. Then I paused, to see the group's reaction...Shock....utter shock....Before they could recover from this shock, I took the rest of the screws and swept them off as well.
"Gentlemen" I said, " We have to redesign the whole cover, so that no screws are needed. Not only will it save "energy" but also labor and reduce manufacturing costs."
By the end of the day....we had finished the project. All fancy calculations were done and reduced to "BTUs" saved. This complete report was submitted to the University. Iam sure they passed it on to Sears. It was Sears, after all , who had donated the vacuum cleaner in the first place.
Oh, by the way, I was offered 4 jobs.....

Making Choices: Chapter 14

2004-06-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

...As we saw in the last chapter, sometimes it takes a shock to make a company see the light. The bigger the company, the harder it is to change its course. In the private sector the economic forces weed out the weak and the inefficient. Public sector, on the other hand has a blanket immunity from any market conditions or realities. This is not entirely true, but by the time any kind of corrective action is taken....years have gone by and millions have suffered.
A public servant is just that...a servant of the public. It is the public servant's job to serve the public. Sounds beautiful doesn't it? A selfless, self sacrificing individual dedicating his or her life to the good of the country. Classic case of double speak. Today's public servants have one goal in mind. To seek out the maximum amount of power they can. Ofcourse, all this concentration of power comes at the expense of the general public. Think about it.
Do any so called public servants or elected officials produce anything? Anything at all?
Do they grow food like a farmer? Do they make steel? Do they dig coal? Do they produce paper? Anyone.....???
These elected officials make rules and regulations for the rest of the public. Law after law is passed. Look at our tax code. The most devious and unjust system ever designed. 10 days plus the first 5 months of a man's wages and earnings are taken away by the Government. 6 months out of the year you work to pay your taxes. Out of what's left you still pay a sales tax everytime you buy something...gas tax, this tax, that tax.
Meanwhile, these departments keep growing bigger and bigger. These bloated "servants of the public" are on a drunken orgy....with no end in sight. Deficit after deficit. Essential services are cut. School programs are cut, taxes are raised...even more, real state taxes go up......but never....are these bloated governmental agencies reduced.
The rules that apply to the private sector....do not apply to the Public sector. If a private company did what these folks do..you wouldn't last a day. I am sure, by now you get a clear picture of what's going on. The foxes are in-charge of the hen house.
The business owner is well aware of all these problems. Folks, don't forget the "Global economy", "free trade" and all the other fancy acronyms. All these are more fancy schemes to suck the last drop out of the patient.
Why ?
Simple. Anyone elected to a public office will do everything in his or her power to keep that job. He will try to create more rules and regulations. His sole mission is to spend more money than he did last year. In the Public sector common sense is turned up side down. Whereas in the Private sector, the goal is to be a lean, mean machine, to save as much money as possible, to be more productive in the Public sector none of these rules apply to the Public sector. The word "productive" is not in their vocabulary. The more departments this guy creates , the more important he feels.
Recipe for disaster.
This disease spreads to big corporations and small companies alike. Take Chrysler corp. as an example. They had so many different departments, and so many different layers, that the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing. Finally the company went bankrupt. Utterly, totally bankrupt. It is at this point that Mr. Lee Iacocca (sp?) was brought in...to try to salvage this company. Why was this gentleman successful in saving Chrysler? I mean they had hundreds of folks who were getting ungodly amounts of compensation to run Chrysler. Had everyone at Chrysler had a lobotomy? Answer, yes...in a manner of speaking. All these folks had been brainwashed into thinking that they knew what they were doing. It took an outsider to come in....and remove this cancer. This malignant and deadly disease that had spread to every nook and cranny at Chrysler. Since this was not a governmental agency, Mr Lee could do as he wished..no ifs, buts or nos.
First, he fired all the department heads...the punk drunk leeches.
The Power players:
Quite a few converting and sheeting plants have a few individuals that suffer from this "know-it-all syndrome". This includes a few owners as well. Only one thing, no two things, that can change this mind-set. One is a self realization from within, and the other is bankruptcy. For no outside force can change this mind-set.

Making Choices: Chapter 13

2004-06-06T09:49:00.000-07:00

K Mart at one time was a major player in the retailing industry. The existing management patted itself on the back....and no one questioned or dared to question anything. If you were to retain your job, you followed the bull crap coming out of management like a bunch of lemmings. Folks these guys were being paid millions of dollars in compensation plus all the perks. Were they asleep at the switch? Had they been lulled into a false sense of security? Could they not see the hand writing on the wall? Next thing....the company went bankrupt. Heads rolled. And the finger pointing began....and so it goes....
Nature's built-in extinction program.
An amoeba is a single celled organism. It can reproduce sexually or asexually. If you take a small beaker full of water and introduce one tiny little amoeba into this medium, pretty soon you have a whole colony. As the amoeba multiply they thrive and the numbers keep going up. This multiplication follows an expotential curve...2, 4, 8, 16, 32,....etc...till it's into the millions and then billions. Then suddenly...something strange happens...This colony hits a "critical mass". At this point in time the colony starts to die....Think K-Mart.....
Obviously , humans have a few more cells than the lowly amoeba. But if we follow Darwins theory...are we not direct descendants of these one celled creatures? Look around you. Have you not seen great chain stores go extinct? Paper mills..that were once giants in the American economy, no longer exist. The list goes on and on....
Once a company reaches this "critical mass", all innovations mysteriously stop happening. The company is top heavy. Management thinks it's invincible. The layer upon layer of management, rules, double-speak, lies and more lies, cooking of books, all spell its doom.
History Repeats Itself.
This act of self destruction doesn't only apply to companies or corporations, but extends to Nations as well. Look at the great civilizations of the past. Their ruins attest to their glory. Where are they to-day? Gone." Crown and septre must come down
and mingle with the dust". Even our sun, one day, will cease to exit.
What does all this have to do with buying a winder?
If you have been reading Dr. Winder's posts and you don't see the connection, then Iam afraid, the rest of the posts are not going to be much help to you. And to those folks who have followed these posts and are starting to see the picture..welcome. " Cast yea not pearls before swines".
Remember, a Winder is nothing more than a tool. The better the tool, the better the results. Yet, you can't discount this..." a bad workman always quarrels with his tools".
Your machine operator must have training. You cannot expect your average car driver to race at the Indy 500. Even if you give him the best car at the starting line.
Without proper training the operator picks up "bad habits". When a new employee is hired, he too picks up on these embedded practices. I have seen a whole bunch of "morons" running around operating machines. It amazes me that the company still makes money ,in spite of all these short comings. I never blame the operators. It is the owner or the plant manager's responsibility to make sure that proper training is imparted to the plant personnel.
OSHA standards dictate that a forklift operator must have proper certification and training. An electrician must be State certified. A plumber , truck driver etc...all must have certifications in their respective trades. Do any of your operators have any kind of certification? No? Did you train any of them? Who trained you? Why, you say, I ran this machine for 25 years!! I can make more rolls-per-shift on this machine than any one else in our plant. I can make a 1,000 rolls per shift! Now think of the master lathe operator...who can sharpen a drill bit in 15 minutes.
Just because you had your head buried in the sand for the last 25 years, doesn't mean the World stood still. A legally blind operator ( State run in Ohio...society for the blind) produces 30,000 rolls a day!!...And she is blind...man.. only 18 years old..How's that grab you?
Take your Blinders off.