Apr 30 2020
The Impact Of Social Distancing On Assembly Operations | John Shook | LEI
“Problems and Countermeasures at GE Appliances and Herman Miller:
- Problem 1: Clarify what is the problem to solve
- Problem 2: Ensure each member is coming to work healthy
- Problem 3: Make assembly line work safe for social distancing
- Problem 4: Maintain social distance for Team Leader Andon response
- Problem 5: Apply social distancing to other, non-assembly line, work areas
- Problem 6: Resolve the many other safety concerns that are cropping up
- Cleaning surfaces
- Cleaning air – Ventilation
- PPE
- …”
Source lean.org
Michel Baudin‘s comments: John Shook’s writings are usually more polished. This one feels like notes from conversations with managers from GE Appliances (GEA) and Herman-Miller (HM). It goes straight into the heart of the matter with no lead or introduction and with acronyms that are not defined but easy to decypher, like “TT” for Takt Time. This tone actually infuses the article with a sense of urgency. It reads like an unvarnished look at what is actually happening and it contains many informative photographs of the shop floors.
For each problem, GEA and HM give pointers on making assembly work safe from COVID-19 but I have a few questions the article does not address:
- How do you protect assembly workers from infection through the products? Social distancing protects them from each other’s breaths but an infected worker’s hand can contaminate a workpiece. The workpiece can then, in turn, infect the next worker’s hand. The article does not discuss means of disinfecting workpieces between stations.
- What does distancing do to assembly operations? For decades, we have been bringing workstations closer together, to make it easier for operators to help each other and run multiple stations when the volume is lower. Now, we have to go in the opposite direction.
#socialdistancing, #assembly, #leanmanufacturing, #covid19
May 6 2020
The Math of COVID-19, And Factories
Whether we like it or not, the past months have given us a crash course in epidemiology. COVID-19 has taken terms like reproduction number, herd immunity, social distancing, or flattening the curve from research literature to daily news and instructions for visitors to California State Parks.
We are in the middle of a pandemic we have partially tamed by putting the economy in a coma. This pandemic has already killed more Americans in two months than the Vietnam war in 20 years and we are facing the unprecedented challenge of restarting factories in this context.
Among the many things to learn in a hurry, are what epidemiologist Adam Kucharski calls the rules of contagion, as they apply to the people who work in a factory and its surrounding community.
Quality control is the closest most of us in Manufacturing ever get to serious statistics/data science. It’s not the same domain as epidemiology, and there is little crossover in tools or methods. This is to share what I have just learned about this topic. I welcome any comment that might correct misconceptions on my part or otherwise enlighten us.
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By Michel Baudin • Data science • 3 • Tags: #Flattening the curve, COVID-19, Cycle testing, Epidemiology, Restarting factories