Every spring we are faced with the same challenge – work more overtime or resume our second shift. When orders increase briefly, one large order for example, it just makes better sense to add overtime. When there is an extended order increase, then it makes better sense to add people. Lastly, when we have an extended order increase that requires a bottleneck piece of equipment, we need to resume our second shift. This spring we have been rewarded with steady welding and steady punch work, both of which are equipment constrained. So we made the decision.
This week we added a punch/forming crew as well as a weld/grind crew to re-open our second shift. Next week we expect to double the size of our 2nd shift weld/grind crew so we can keep pace with our customers’ demand schedule. We expect this demand to remain steady or increase throughout the year.
Why does this matter to you?
A strong second shift allows us to move a lot of our steady work out of our first shift. This now opens up capacity for prototypes and new business on first shift. During the day we have all of our best problem solving or troubleshooting folks available to get your new project up and running faster. As your projects migrate to steady business, the work will migrate to second shift to again open up capacity for new projects.
There is a premium we pay to attract reliable, high quality second shift workers. You might be worried that increased cost would be passed through to you. In our cast, the overhead portion of our quotes assumes a single shift. When we run a project on second shift, our labor costs are higher, but our overhead costs are lower. The result is a wash – no extra costs to you – but delivery is improved.
Sometimes people worry about quality suffering when parts are run on a second shift. This typically occurs when sheet metal fabrication shops hire substandard workers. In our case, we pay a premium and expect a premium result. We have also found that that 2nd shift supervisor make a big difference. The right 2nd shift supervisor makes that same spot inspections throughout the shift that we do on first shift to ensure the quality processes are being maintained. And the same final inspection folks on first shift also check second shift work. This “belt and suspenders” approach is a bit more expensive, but it works well and the lower second shift overhead helps cover this additional inspection cost.
Overall, our new customers get more NPI capacity for their new projects and our existing steady customers get more production capacity for their new parts. Plus we get a chance to employ another 6 to 8 people that have been out of work. We think this is a win-win-win. Hopefully you do too.
from ETM Manufacturing http://etmmfg.com/3640
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