[Keith Seymore]

We’ve talked about the variation between plants, and the variation within an assembly plant due to different operators.

What we haven’t talked about is how many different operators might be on the same job, even within the same day. This might be an appropriate place to take a second and do so.

Some assembly plants shut down for “break times”. The UAW required 6 minutes of break time for each hour worked, distributed into a break in the morning and a break in the afternoon (not counting ½ hour for lunch). If that operator never takes an additional break (to use the bathroom, or for a medical issue) then you might only have one person on that job per shift. This is probably what you would expect.

However – some plants use a “rolling” break technique. Said differently: the line doesn’t shut down for break, and there is a staff of “utility men” or replacement workers who go to each job and give that worker a break individually. After that assembler comes back the relief man goes to the next job* and gives that assembler a break, until everybody in the area has been covered - all this while the line keeps rolling. If you had a different relief man covering the morning break vs the afternoon break then you are up to three operators per shift; times the number of shifts (two or three); so you could have as many as 9 people touching those parts for a three shift productive operation.

That assumes the person doesn’t need a quick respite, covered by a different utility man, quality man (the foreman’s right hand man) or the foreman himself (in some cases) at some other point during the shift.

I say all this to say: there could be between 1 and 8 or 9 people performing the same job in the same assembly plant within a given 24 hour period. That introduces a whole ‘nother level of variation.

K

*one nuance to note here is that there was a person (several, actually) who could do any job within a foreman’s designated area. I was able to do every job within my area (approx 27 different operations) – sometimes more than one at once(!).