Made it

Well I made it through. The order is on it's way to the customer and I have had a couple of days to regain some sanity. According to some online friends I chat with I was "anti-social, cranky and threatening their appendages" (funny that almost sounds normal to me :P ) Anyhow, I can only hope we don't have another order like that for a while. Small orders are great, these huge ones, while nice knowing it creates job security, are very hard on this old body.

It's Basic Math - Update

At 9a.m. the Boss had a meeting with us about what hours we need to work to get the order completed on time. The schedule decided on was as follows:

Monday 10th - 10 hours
Tuesday 11th - 10 hours
Wednesday 12th - 10 hours
Thursday 13th - 10 hours
Friday 14th - 12 hours
Saturday 15th - 8 hours
Sunday 16th - OFF
Monday 17th - 12 hours
Tuesday 18th - 12 hours
Wednesday 19th - 12 hours
Thursday 20th - 12 hours

At 11 a.m. the meltblown blew something loose and ripped a hole out the back of the machine. No clue how long it will be to get it fixed. The previous schedule is now on hold. (sighssssssssssssssssss)

It's Basic Math

Have you ever given your Boss an OH CHIT moment? Well I had that opportunity today. And it all revolves around basic mathematics. Now, you need to know I am a machine operator, and he is Suppose to be the Boss. Today we were going over the Dusenberry (rewinder, paper machine) schedule. We have a hugeeeeeee order, 140,000 square meters, of material due out on Friday, 21st of January. We are scheduled to start running it on Monday the 17th. Just 4 days before. The truck needs to be loaded Friday, so that is not considered a production day.
The meltblown machine is scheduled to start producing the material on the 10th of January, it then has to cure roughly 72 hours, depending on the heat/humidity in the building. Then we cut it down to smaller rolls. So we won't have access to it until at the earliest, Friday the 14th.

Well I told the Boss today, there was no way, in that overheated southern region, we were going to be able to run 140k square meters of material in 4 days. He was like why not? I told him to grab his handy dandy calculator and figure out how long it took us to run the last order that was only 17k. It took just over 8 hours.

So, figure roughly 17k in an 8 hour shift.
140,000 / 17000 = 8.25 days (This is where his jaw dropped and he said, "brb.... oh how do you feel about working weekends?")
My normal days off are Fri-Sun. I work four 10 hour days.

Ummm ok, we now have doubled the time they had set aside to run this material. When you take into consideration 3 hours set up time, employee breaks and 64 hours straight running time, we need almost 70 hours to get this order out.We get the material Friday, even if we run said material for 8 hours Friday, Mon, Tues, Weds, and Thursday, we will NOT be done for the following Friday. NO CHIT . I kid you not, do the math.
5x8=40 (30 hours short)

So maybe we need to work 12 hour shifts, again do the math,
12x5= 60 (10 hours short, and already working one of my days off)

The only true, workable solution, is to work six 12 hour days, regardless of what they want, in order to get the order out on time. 2 of my 3 days off, 12 hours all the way through. Now, I won't lie, I love overtime pay, that is not my complaint here.

My complaint is Why The Friggin Heck did I need to tell them this??!!!

quote

If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to you and yours.

May it bring peace and prosperity to all.

Quote of the day

From "The Premature Burial"

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?

Edgar Allan Poe