Machine Shop Layout 4

[renzon]

I am not sure if I'm asking the right guys but I need help with a layout for our machine shop.

We are expanding our current machine shop to have about 2500 sqft. Currently the guys are in cramped quarters but now that we have the extra room I would like to come up with something that functions well for them as well as being pleasing to the eye (the president is big on this). The room is pretty simple just a large rectangle with 4 haas cnc's that are on one wall. They are pretty much not going to be moved so I won’t worry about them. We do have 3 Bridgeport knee mills that need to be situated somewhere that allows enough room for the max travel.

Then I come to the battle of tables. I don’t like the machinist having a table to store their crap on, recently we had a huge clean up and their area was the WORST. Not only did they have double and triple of most tools they also had lots of useless garbage mixed in. While I do understand the need for one sturdy table to do some work on and install a vise on I do not think that each machinist should have their own.

Those are my quick concerns and of coarse not the most important ones. But how would you go about laying out the room? Would you include the operators and have them do a wish list or just lay things out and have them adapt to the new environment?

 

[Metalfixer]

I would include the operators in the planning, and would allow each one to have a small bench with a vise, so that it is their responsibility to keep it clean, rather than one large bench with one vise. I have worked at shops that position the Bridgeport vertical mills on an angle, at least one or two, to allow for an occasional long workpiece.
If their benches are cluttered now, a common bench would always have to be cleaned up after each use. If one machinist is working on a "hot" job and uses the vise and bench,the cleanup will probably go to the next person.
Larry

 

[ajack1]

I would certainly get the machinist input; after all they are the ones that will have to work with or around your design.

Give plenty of thought to gangways; do you need to get a fork truck to all or indeed any machines?

As for benches individual is far better IMO, someone will always take more care of something that is theirs rather than just used by everyone. Small portable benches are best as they can store all the items they need, clamps, collets, cutters as well as personal stuff, mics, verniers etc but they can still be moved to allow large jobs to be moved around.

Having a place for everything is important, every spanner, clamp etc should have its own place that everyone knows where to put it and more importantly where to find it, nothing is more annoying than spending half an hour looking for something only to find Fred has left it hidden under his newspaper.

Finally make everyone responsible for the place being tidy, either by rewarding the best with prizes, a create of beer or some such small token, if you can make them see it as a competition results will follow, failing that beat them to within an inch of their lives with a large stick, that also works.

 

[PSE]

In agreement with the others, you will need buy-in from the machinists themselves for this to ultimately be successful. Let them know that the president is potentially considering the area to be a "showcase" or visible area of the facility.

We have individual bench areas and keep several common areas for tooling to be kept based on machine type. Keep in mind how material needs to flow and be handled through the shop as well as accessibility needs for each machine.

Plan carefully and if you can, tape out the footprints etc in the expansion and do a walk through. You are only going to want to move stuff around once due to costs and potential damage risks.

Regards,

 

[limey1]

Sounds like a great opportunity for a 5S workshop. Have total involvement from your guys from the ground up. Get rid of what isnt needed or used, find a place for everything you do use (close to where it will be used), and make it visible. Of course they will still need or want their own toolboxes but they could be smaller if commonly used tools were shared. This could help with deciding your layout.

 

[MadMango]

A simple walk-thru with the operators would go a long way into understanding what they want/need. You can then balance that with what is available/possible.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[Newmanite]

I hate the rigours of a 5S program but I do have to agree that everything should have a place.
It is important to recognize the machining crew in your decision making for the workshop.
These crews are constantly on their feet at the lathe etc so having their own personal work table would be important to them,empowering them into the satisfaction that their own personal area is their responsibility,and having a common work bench for other jobs is also important.If cleanliness is paramount get the crew to finish 15 mins earlier in the day for housekeeping issues.In appreciation of their work and their housekeeping duties supply a smoko day for them where you win two fold.Morale is at a high and workshop cleanliness is improved.
What is important is The standard you walk passed is the standard you set.

 

[swyw]

I think it is really hard for me to give you any advice as I do not know the production nature of your machine shop. Is this shop normally involve in job shop production or batch production. Is most of the thing they make is similar or very different in design? Is it possible to group products with similar manufacturing procedures together? If you can answer all these questions yourself, the obvious solution is just a few inches away from you.

Best wishes

 

[renzon]

To answer some questions, we do produce mostly the same part just they very by design. We are actually a fan blade repair facility and overhaul turbine blades for most of the airlines and military. Our parts very in size from 6in to 48in but most cuts done in the machine shop are straight lines with some radius cuts. There are lots of fixture changes due to the daily changes in priority but all the fixtures are pretty much the same. When the occasion calls for it there is some odd ball work such as helping make repair parts for machines in the shop or making adjustments to weld/machine/production fixtures.

I have submitted a rough layout to management to show them that we have a lot more space to branch out and help with the flow of production. I hope to have an approval to begin the design process and then I will defiantly involve the operators with they final layout.

If there is anything else please keep the information coming I appreciate it.

 

[MikeHalloran]

The machinists have already decided that you need short term tool storage right at the mill. All you have provided to date is a table, so that's what they used. Whatever else was on their tables also should be stored nearby, so give them a means to do so.

They won't _ask_ for anything like that in most shops because management has already demonstrated, over and over, that no matter what management says about every new program that comes down the pike, there's never any money budgeted to actually _do_ anything, or there was money budgeted, but it went to the president's girlfriend's special project, or the money budgeted wasn't enough to pay the sales tax on what really needs to be spent.

People are not born cynics; it takes decades of conditioning. Reversing any of it takes perseverance and, especially, sincerity.

<Obvious joke omitted>




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[RobWard]

When we recently built a new factory I was asked to sort out the layout.
In the end I used the free version of Google Sketchup, made some simple models of all our equipment (it's very fast and easy to use: if I can use it, anyone can) then placed them on a floor plan.
Then I could click and drag things round and even do animated walk throughs. We managed to avoid quite a few potential problems by doing that.
We also showed the model to the workers and made some changes based on their input, so they didn't feel like they had had the layout simply forced on them.

(We also took the opportunity to clear up, discard all the junk that machinists accumulate and provide proper storage for everything. We now try to have "a place for everything, and everything in its place")

"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go past." Douglas Adams

 

[renzon]

We now try to have "a place for everything, and everything in its place"

for lack of a better term this is exactly what i want. my ideal shop would be one where any employee from the president down to the newly hired can walk into that room and ask where is____? and they can reply 3rd drawer on the 2 shelf and its always there. i know i might as well ask for world peace but then again i need a reason to wake up during the week right?

 

[swyw]

Renzon,

I am not an expert in turbine repair. I did layout the machine shop of a outboard motor factory many years ago. Perhaps the follow example can give you some insignt.

We have to machine seven different version of aluminum housing for electronic power regulators. From manufacturing point of view, I divided them into two different groups.

One group of three housings can use the same machining fixture for CNC machining, simply because they were very similar in shape. They were different in two hole posiitions, end face and one slot. We setup an machine shop cell to cope with this group of housings. Two CNC machining centers handle most of the machining job. Two housing should then be maching by a semi-automatic milling machine. The last housing should be machined by another semi-automatic milling machine after CNC machining. After milling, each of these housing should then be transferred to a dedicated drill press to drill the two remaining holes.

The second group of two housings was machined by another CNC machining centre of another machine shop cell. Of course, they use the same holding fixture. The machining procedure was similar to the first group. They were processed by another machine shop cell because they were very different in size and shape to the first group.

My objective was to eliminate machine setup time and improve labour utility. By the way it is not too expensive to buy two machining centers as long as you have enough production volume. To cope with the small geometrical difference we use dedicated manual drill press, which is pretty cheap, to finshed the last machining process. We end up with two machine shop cells which can operate at 90% machine time utility and 93% labour time utility.

I understanding that we made metal components in batch, which might be very different from turbine blade repair. I hope this story can help you to think for some new ideas.

I never make turbine blade. Is it possible to group them according to shape and size and gain some advantage in setup time reduction.

Furthermore we modified many of our fixtures and stamping tools such that each fixture or stamping tool was mount onto a standard mounting plate. When tool change is required, the modified fixture will aligned itself against several dow pins in the machine bed/platform. Since these fixture was setup properly aginst the standard mounting plate, the machine can resume production in the shortest possible time.

I hope some of my experience helps.

All the best
swyw

 

[rhodie]

I've recently come from a large (US government) engine overhaul facility, and worked firsthand amidst a huge $$$$ 'transformation' effort taking place to accomplish just what you describe.

The government hired a contractor to (among other things) paint the floors with a high-gloss white epoxy coating and hang high intensity lights in the shops area. I gather that with first things being first, if the area was bright and broadly visible then clutter and messes would stick out glaringly (and the impulse to clean and straighten would be intuitive...)

Also, foam cutouts in toolboxes were prevalent. Tool control is very important on a military installation, so this simple addition 'weeded out' and duplicative or unneeded tools from the set.

Kitcarts were built for WIP, so that engine parts were treated the same way; discrete parts were accounted for, 100% of the time, and kept together in the same 'module' they were disassembled in from the engine.

Good luck.

 

[edpaq]

Hi all, I'm new to this forum so I may be a little late to this thread but here is my 2 cents.

I have done quite a few layouts in a commercial bakery. Regardless if your are making donuts or fan blades the concepts of morale, ergonomics, safety, workflow, and econmics are the same.

You should ask everyone on the floor for their input, even the Janitor. If he can't get a broom between the wall and machine chances are he won't sweep it. Not to say you have to move the machine, a simple solution would be to get him a smaller broom for that purpose. It might even be his suggestion.

Ask the operators for suggestions, granted you will get the guy who wants a refrigerator next to his machine. but you will also get things like "one of these days the forklift is going to hit somone at this corner because he can't see around it." or " These fixtures are so far away I always have to get somone to help, if I had a small cart I could do it myself." You will be surprised at the great input you will get.

Never laugh or put down a suggestion to anyone no matter how far out you think it may be(OK, you can laugh with the refrigerator guy). Make sure they see you write it down so they know you are listening to them. Talk to them while they are working so you can observe them and the work flow. But do not tell them you are observing. Take the list of suggestions and priortize it. Pick out the best ones and see if they are feisable, then include them in your layout. Remember at some point you are going to be asked. "Why didn't you take my suggestion." Always answer someting like. "I thought about it and it was a great idea, but I just could not do it because of XYZ"

The point here is that you want these employees to support you. Buy them a cup of coffee and talk to them individualy and in groups. Let them know you are trying to improve their work enviornment as well as improving efficiency. When you do use someones idea make sure everyone knows it was Joe's idea.

The most important thing to remember is that your layout is only 1/2 of the battle. The other 1/2 is to get your employees to want it to work. If you get them behind you they will make it work regardless of what you might have missed.

Last thing and I will shut up. Try putting the persons name on the benches in big letters so everyone can see. "Joe's Bench". Human nature makes us tend to take care of things better when our names are on it.

Eddie

 

[tomwalz]

Two points in support of edpaq’s excellent post.

In about 30 years of checking with employees I have probably gotten approval about 90% of the time. What is really important is that I never got any strong resistance. Some times we wouldn’t make the changes because of employee input but it was always because they were right. Ask them, give them awhile to mull it over. If they offer resistance back down until they cool down and then try another angle.

You never know what is important. Our assembly people have individual work lights. Every few years somebody has a good idea for a new kind of light and we get all new lights. We have gone from magnifying lights to incandescent to fluorescent and now we’re back to incandescent.

We will switch from one to another and back again. It is maybe a hundred bucks every couple years. It gives them something to talk about for a few weeks. I don’t see the difference. I don’t think we need to change but we do it anyway.

True story. Many, many years ago I was starting my own business. I had been trained to be a “tough” manager. One night I had a dream that I went out in the shop and “got tough”. They all got up left. Then it occurred to me that it is a lot easier for a dozen good people to get new jobs than for me to get a dozen good people and train them.

Tom


Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.

http://www.carbideprocessors.com