This Thread Blows - C19 and beyond

[Santapez]

I don't know your specific industry, I used to develop sw for machines that build electric motors, alternators, starters etc. and 3-6 months for no customization is quite optimistic actually in that industry, especially since there's no such thing as no customization, each manufacturer has their own products that they want to produce with the machine(s) they order. Then you have to ship it, install it, have it tested and accepted (certify it's meeting production standards, safety standards and customer's specifications).

Primary water/wastewater but get into other stuff here and there. I'm an integrator doing controls.

When I say no customization, I literally mean "I bought this mask making machine from you in October 2018, I want another one, NO changes. No different equipment, parts, etc". Acknowledging that first machine could have taken years of design/building/testing.

You do PLCs I assume?

On edit: I'm also making the assumption that whoever builds the machine puts you at the front of the line. Up until a month ago, EVERYONE has been busy that I work with. I'd like to think the company making this machine would put you in front of the flag making machine or whatever else they have going on.

 

[Paul H]

My point is that stocking up a few sewing machine is a different thing than stocking a machine to mass produce any type of PPE. I don't know how much a sewing machine or a loom may cost so I was asking you. Don't take everything so personal, it must be nerve wrecking!

I am aware of fashion and sport industry companies converting to face mask production, but I don't believe they're on a scale of millions units. Anything helps though.

Perhaps not... prolly different scale. Bigger the scale, bigger the capital.
But business is business... I would doubt someone with sewing factory money would get into PPE factory.

 

[serviceguy]

Primary water/wastewater but get into other stuff here and there. I'm an integrator doing controls.

When I say no customization, I literally mean "I bought this mask making machine from you in October 2018, I want another one, NO changes. No different equipment, parts, etc". Acknowledging that first machine could have taken years of design/building/testing.

You do PLCs I assume?

Used to, mostly A&B and some Siemens (very little), I was more versed in custom made controllers using assembly and C, C++ etc. Last project I carried out was back in 2006 in Germany (METABO) updating the transport system between several machines involved in the production. Again, custom controllers developed in house using assembly language back in the '80s and early '90s, they didn't have anybody else to work on those clunkers so I had to delay my permanent move to the US.

 

[Paul H]

you never know, some places yes, some places no. I do some business with 3M(nothing to do with masks), they wanted to know everything about our production capabilities, lead times, do we have an extra plant(yes, an extra plant, because doesn't everybody have one of those on the side, just in case your plant goes down!). Other places, most in fact, just want to know the prices, and minimum quantity order number.
The really good companies really have their ducks in a row, but a lot of them do not. And like everybody is saying, it's really tough to make 2x what you usually make let alone, what ever x number now, would fill the need for masks. Especially since so much of the raw material we use to manufacture is procured from overseas.

I don't think there is any conspiracy, I think that sometimes, really bad shit happens.

Whenever I get into a discussion of factory product cost with upper management, I always tell them, you get what you paid for.
That non-disruption of production/99% on time delivery... its because that particular factory invested to make it so and you get charged for it in your finished goods.
The question always becomes, what is that worth to you?

 

[roc]

Whenever I get into a discussion of factory product cost with upper management, I always tell them, you get what you paid for.
That non-disruption of production/99% on time delivery... its because that particular factory invested to make it so and you get charged for it in your finished goods.
The question always becomes, what is that worth to you?

No doubt, I have a potential client who is having a 30-40% rejection rate on the stuff they were shipping, because they were buying a pretty shitty container. My containers almost never have leaks, an extremely low amount of problems, but they are twice as expensive. The engineers want to use our containers, they are tired of the complaints from the end users, but they can not get the people above them to see that it would actually cost less to use my product. All they see is 1 container is $14 and mine is $25. But man, if I can ever get them to change, they use 85,000 a year. that would be a good year!

 

[serviceguy]

No doubt, I have a potential client who is having a 30-40% rejection rate on the stuff they were shipping, because they were buying a pretty shitty container. My containers almost never have leaks, an extremely low amount of problems, but they are twice as expensive. The engineers want to use our containers, they are tired of the complaints from the end users, but they can not get the people above them to see that it would actually cost less to use my product. All they see is 1 container is $14 and mine is $25. But man, if I can ever get them to change, they use 85,000 a year. that would be a good year!

You could suggest your management to buy the $14 containers and sell it to them for $19 without touching it claiming improved QC, management will approve no doubt. Works for a lot of stuff made in RPC and sold by US vendors.

 

[Paul H]

You could suggest your management to buy the $14 containers and sell it to them for $19 without touching it claiming improved QC, management will approve no doubt. Works for a lot of stuff made in RPC and sold by US vendors.

damaging the brand will cost more in the long run.

 

[roc]

You could suggest your management to buy the $14 containers and sell it to them for $19 without touching it claiming improved QC, management will approve no doubt. Works for a lot of stuff made in RPC and sold by US vendors.

I sell the containers, I don't have the $14 ones. Mine, really are very high quality, most of my business is in pharma. Sometimes they are shipping out 200k worth of product in a Drum, so they don't care that mine costs so much more. But other industries do not care as much. the chemical companies care, if they have leaks, people can die!

 

[Paul H]

Russian plane with medical supplies lands at JFK... 😳

 

[Monkey Soup]

Haven't heard of shortage of raw materials. Maybe you know best.
No one said production is a simple process. From what I know from my industry, there are rare occasions where a production factory runs at 100% capacity. You can't increase production without increasing capacity. For 3M to double their production on the quick, I would have to imagine that they were not at 100% to begin with so the capacity was there. Just unused until recently. But thats just my guess.

Depends on what your definition of capacity is. How many shifts are you running? If you're not running 3 shifts, then you're not truly at 100% capacity. You also don't run 3 shifts and pay for those operators unless you really need to.

3m had machines sitting, not running. They flipped a switch and stated making more masks.

I doubt it. Any plant manager who just has lines sitting idle is not long for the plant-manager position.

I meant the machines used in your business. I don't believe any business would keep a $250K machine as spare just in case unless they know there's going to be a surge in demand.

Everyone has spares for wear items in the health/pharma industry. If something breaks beyond the spares you have in inventory, you usually call the vendor to fix it. Very few, if any, keep an entire line as backup, and not in use. Idle lines = Bad.

 

[Paul H]

Depends on what your definition of capacity is. How many shifts are you running? If you're not running 3 shifts, then you're not truly at 100% capacity. You also don't run 3 shifts and pay for those operators unless you really need to.

I doubt it. Any plant manager who just has lines sitting idle is not long for the plant-manager position.

Everyone has spares for wear items in the health/pharma industry. If something breaks beyond the spares you have in inventory, you usually call the vendor to fix it. Very few, if any, keep an entire line as backup, and not in use. Idle lines = Bad.

I only know of 1 definition of production capacity... not saying there aren't others. I just know of 1
If you add a shift... thats increasing capacity. You add a worker/machine... thats increasing capacity.
If you are anywhere close to 100% capacity for a substantial period of time... my guess would be to find a way to increase capacity whether by investing in infrastructure and/or overhead to match the demand.

 

[Santapez]

I only know of 1 definition of production capacity... not saying there aren't others. I just know of 1
If you add a shift... thats increasing capacity. You add a worker/machine... thats increasing capacity.
If you are anywhere close to 100% capacity for a substantial period of time... my guess would be to find a way to increase capacity whether by investing in infrastructure and/or overhead to match the demand.

But it isn't always easy as just adding capacity. This is also an immediate, yet short term increase.

How do you add a shift? Hire new employees, train them, put them on the factory floor. Days/Weeks.
How do you get more raw materials? Same thing, suppliers need to ramp up their production to feed you.
What if your facility doesn't allow the input/output of increased shifts? Traffic at the front gate, dock bays for the trucks, # of forklifts and drivers for those, places to put pallets, etc.

Norm pointed out how toilet paper has a pretty damn steady steam of product. Marcal let's say makes 10,000 rolls of toilet paper a week, they're not going to run at a low capacity normally. They're going to run at near full capacity with the knowledge they'll have some machine downtime due to repairs & holidays. I'm willing to bet all maintenance/repairs are done on off hours unless it's a major repair. Those machines and everything else is expensive so they run multiple shifts already possibly 7 days a week. The presses are tuned for optimal speed of production vs wear & issues.

 

[serviceguy]

For the communist party? You mean losing power? And why would they lose power? Because they were mean?

There could be a lot of anger toward how the crisis was managed by the communist party, if they were not to manage squashing all reports of how they enforced quarantine it could be a big problem. Potentially.

 

[Paul H]

But it isn't always easy as just adding capacity. This is also an immediate, yet short term increase.

How do you add a shift? Hire new employees, train them, put them on the factory floor. Days/Weeks.
How do you get more raw materials? Same thing, suppliers need to ramp up their production to feed you.
What if your facility doesn't allow the input/output of increased shifts? Traffic at the front gate, dock bays for the trucks, # of forklifts and drivers for those, places to put pallets, etc.

Norm pointed out how toilet paper has a pretty damn steady steam of product. Marcal let's say makes 10,000 rolls of toilet paper a week, they're not going to run at a low capacity normally. They're going to run at near full capacity with the knowledge they'll have some machine downtime due to repairs & holidays. I'm willing to bet all maintenance/repairs are done on off hours unless it's a major repair. Those machines and everything else is expensive so they run multiple shifts already possibly 7 days a week. The presses are tuned for optimal speed of production vs wear & issues.

Is this post done just for the sake of posting? In my above post, I don't believe I said adding capacity was simple. lol

 

[Paul H]

There could be a lot of anger toward how the crisis was managed by the communist party, if they were not to manage squashing all reports of how they enforced quarantine it could be a big problem. Potentially.

Didn't someone just disappear because he complained about the government handling of CV19?

 

[Mahnken]

I doubt it. Any plant manager who just has lines sitting idle is not long for the plant-manager position.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

"Idle machinery installed for precisely this purpose would be activated, and many of the plant’s 650 employees would immediately start working overtime."

 

[serviceguy]

Everyone has spares for wear items in the health/pharma industry. If something breaks beyond the spares you have in inventory, you usually call the vendor to fix it. Very few, if any, keep an entire line as backup, and not in use. Idle lines = Bad.

I've seen some critical spares being stored, but in my experience the only preventive type of action was to build additional product stock while the demand was low it in preparation for outages (usually programmed maintenance), doesn't work as a solution to doubled or tripled product demand for an extended period of time.

I was asked once by a plant manager if we could fix an hydraulic press while it was working in order not to affect production...because no planning.

 

[serviceguy]

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

"Idle machinery installed for precisely this purpose would be activated, and many of the plant’s 650 employees would immediately start working overtime."

I don't know these machines, but in what used to be my line of business any machine idle for an extended period of time cannot be considered a fully working machine. Again, I'm sure 3M knows what they're doing and my example does not apply.

 

[Paul H]

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

"Idle machinery installed for precisely this purpose would be activated, and many of the plant’s 650 employees would immediately start working overtime."

Do you believe they were preparing for this tho?
I mean... I am glad they can do this but I question whether or not they were preparing.
My guess would be they shifted some of their production overseas/elsewhere and had machines being unused lol
Great publicity tho.... 😀

 

[Mahnken]

Do you believe they were preparing for this tho?
I mean... I am glad they can do this but I question whether or not they were preparing.
My guess would be they shifted some of their productions overseas and had machines being unused lol
Great publicity tho.... 😀

I think any business in the industry should have been preparing for this. Experts have said it was coming for years. Was only a matter of time before this happened.