Neal Spangler

Work Shop floor

Learned the machines, then trained new hires on them

I'm the shop's system administrator. From late April I also ran the production floor: I learned the machines, trained new hires, led the morning crew meeting and screened candidates.

Roland TrueVIS printer/cutters
Roland TrueVIS printer/cutters Photo: Biswarup Ganguly, CC BY 3.0
6machine types in one training day
16 daysfrom first floor shift to leading training
1rule replaced a contradictory corner-rounder sheet

The problem

New hires were about to start. Some know-how lived only with a long-time operator, and one handwritten settings sheet contradicted itself. I knew the computers behind the machines, but the machines themselves I had to learn on live orders.

What I did

  • Learned the digital presses, wide-format printers, cutting table, guillotine, laser engraver and finishing gear by running real jobs, and kept an hourly log of every floor day.
  • Ran a one-day training session on the shop's core machines, then paired new hires with experienced operators and supervised live jobs.
  • Started most days with a shop walk-through and a crew meeting to set priorities, then put each person on a machine and worked alongside them.
  • Screened applicants, called them, led shop tours, and gave each new hire a day-one orientation and a first machine lesson.
  • Mentored a junior developer: set up the workstation, reviewed changes before staging, merged the pull requests and ran the staging deploys.
From first floor shift to a training day Timeline: first floor shift on April 27, teaching coworkers by May 6, a training day for new hires on May 13, and screening candidates in June. The training day covered six machine types: digital press, guillotine, grommet machine, wide-format printers, laser engraver and cutting table. Apr 27 First floor shift May 6 Teaching coworkers May 13 Training day June Screening hires Training day: 6 machine types Digital press Canon imagePRESS Guillotine programmable paper cutter Grommet machine banner finishing Wide-format Roland printer/cutters Laser engraver Trotec Cutting table Esko Kongsberg
From my first floor shift to leading a training day on the shop's core machines.

What I took from it

Running jobs on the machines helped me understand the faults operators described. I can check the computer and software with a clearer idea of what the crew is trying to produce.

Shop floor

An out-of-service DTF printer back in production

Repaired an out-of-service DTF printer with vendor support and got the $2,750 service fee waived.
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