Hi everybody.
Iv been floating around the forum all day (public holiday in Ireland) and I've been soaking up a lot of info. This truly is a treasure chest of resources. Thank you.
But alas I need some more guidance. I've recently been promoted to Workshop Manager in our company. Our company specialises in Robotic and Automation Systems and our tool room is only a small section of the company. We have one Hurco VM1, two Bridgeport manuals and a Triumph manual lathe as well as belt sanders, pedestal drills and the likes. The downside to being promoted is that I still have to work on the tools to meet demand as well as take care of other duties such as welding, taking charge of health and safety and so on. A typical day is VERY busy for me and so I rely a lot on my co-workers to help out where they can. And credit where it is due, the guys do pull their weight.
All except one! The only guys allowed to run the milling machines/lathes are myself and, another guy. Lets call him Bob. Bob is a Toolmaker (Irish term for machinist) by trade and the title is where it stops. I can only guess that the guy had a really bad mentor during his apprenticeship because he has no concept of how cutting tools work. He cant tell me the difference between climb milling and down milling, cant calculate speeds and feed, cant sharpen a drill bit and so on. I regularly catch him milling with end mills in a drill chuck because 'He doesnt have time to be changing collets.' He is hugely argumentative and gets very defensive if I try to explain to him what he's doing wrong. If I told him the sky was blue he would argue that it was red. All of this I can deal with as I only give him jobs that he cant really cock up and everyone is happy.
The thing that really gets to me is his attitude towards house keeping. Simply put the guy is a lazy slob. Any machine he lays his hands on is a mess. Cutters, drill bits, clamping tools all left under piles of chips and coolant. Cutters knocked into the coolant tray, nuts and bolts left all over the work bench.......the list goes on. Its when it spills over onto my machine is when it really gets to me. Instead of tidying away the clamping tools for his own machine, he feels its perfectly ok to take items from a different machine to save time. Nightmare.
The problem really lies in the fact that we are good friends and he is actually a pretty decent worker in other departments such as assembly and installatons. But he likes machining and wants to be at it all the time even though he is costing us a fortune on broken and lost tooling. Iv tried to ask him several time to keep the workshop tidy and organised (I'm trying to inrtoduce a tool inventory system) and he is all for the idea and agrees completely but then completely ignores what I have said after an hour or two.
How do I deal with this kind of situation? I have very little experience in managing workers like this. Is it my problem? Is it HR's problem? Any advice or wise words would be greatly appreciated. Please dont see this as a rant.
Iv been floating around the forum all day (public holiday in Ireland) and I've been soaking up a lot of info. This truly is a treasure chest of resources. Thank you.
But alas I need some more guidance. I've recently been promoted to Workshop Manager in our company. Our company specialises in Robotic and Automation Systems and our tool room is only a small section of the company. We have one Hurco VM1, two Bridgeport manuals and a Triumph manual lathe as well as belt sanders, pedestal drills and the likes. The downside to being promoted is that I still have to work on the tools to meet demand as well as take care of other duties such as welding, taking charge of health and safety and so on. A typical day is VERY busy for me and so I rely a lot on my co-workers to help out where they can. And credit where it is due, the guys do pull their weight.
All except one! The only guys allowed to run the milling machines/lathes are myself and, another guy. Lets call him Bob. Bob is a Toolmaker (Irish term for machinist) by trade and the title is where it stops. I can only guess that the guy had a really bad mentor during his apprenticeship because he has no concept of how cutting tools work. He cant tell me the difference between climb milling and down milling, cant calculate speeds and feed, cant sharpen a drill bit and so on. I regularly catch him milling with end mills in a drill chuck because 'He doesnt have time to be changing collets.' He is hugely argumentative and gets very defensive if I try to explain to him what he's doing wrong. If I told him the sky was blue he would argue that it was red. All of this I can deal with as I only give him jobs that he cant really cock up and everyone is happy.
The thing that really gets to me is his attitude towards house keeping. Simply put the guy is a lazy slob. Any machine he lays his hands on is a mess. Cutters, drill bits, clamping tools all left under piles of chips and coolant. Cutters knocked into the coolant tray, nuts and bolts left all over the work bench.......the list goes on. Its when it spills over onto my machine is when it really gets to me. Instead of tidying away the clamping tools for his own machine, he feels its perfectly ok to take items from a different machine to save time. Nightmare.
The problem really lies in the fact that we are good friends and he is actually a pretty decent worker in other departments such as assembly and installatons. But he likes machining and wants to be at it all the time even though he is costing us a fortune on broken and lost tooling. Iv tried to ask him several time to keep the workshop tidy and organised (I'm trying to inrtoduce a tool inventory system) and he is all for the idea and agrees completely but then completely ignores what I have said after an hour or two.
How do I deal with this kind of situation? I have very little experience in managing workers like this. Is it my problem? Is it HR's problem? Any advice or wise words would be greatly appreciated. Please dont see this as a rant.