CMM operators: how big is your shop?

[CarbideBob]

....
and YOU tell everyone I should be fired?
.

Never said you should be fired and sorry for a blunt response.

You seem very unhappy in the job. This is never good for you or the company.
Remember that life is short and one does not want to go home grumpy every night.
Also remember that the grass is very often not greener on the other side of the fence.
This job you have chosen comes with lots of baggage, problems and lack of respect. None the less it is the job.
I'd like to tell you it better other places but depends on the shop and management, not size at all.
Just as working on the floor, supervisor, trades, or as the janitor there are good shops and bad shops of all sizes.
If not happy and able to deal with it move... It may be frying pan to fire but then you can always move again.

On getting fired. If not liking your job you will not do well at it.
In this case management may sort of nudge you out the door. This is true in all job positions.

Do what you love and love what you do. Every job everywhere comes with a wheelbarrow of shit that has to be put up with.
It is never all fun and games which is why it is called going to work.

Want a base answer?. No, big is not better as the pressure can be higher due to volume and production demands. Many prefer smaller.
Not sure what you have in certs but get every one you can in this field at work or outside on your own time. Seem like baby steps of no use but they do add up.
Bob
(already got it that you do not like me so pennies and bullshit from the peanut galley)

 

[mhajicek]

No, big is not better

This is true. Big is just different. There can be more money, better resources, but also in a big company an employee is often treated as a commodity, disposable and replaceable. You may need to try several pastures before finding one green enough.

 

[gregormarwick]

I suspect that it is pretty hard to find a job where you work exclusively as an inspector or CMM operator, where you also have the respect and support of all of your colleagues. I'm sure such positions exist, but I expect they are rare.

To management you are a necessary evil, an overhead that they are obliged to maintain. To the guys on the shop floor, you are the gatekeeper to their success.

In most small places, mine included, people wear multiple hats, which levels everyone's value and reduces in-fighting, at the cost of bandwidth and efficiency.

Counting myself, there are three people here who can program and operate the CMM, but they are also machinists and CAD/CAM operators as well. We try to operate peer inspection by policy, but with a small team and frequent time constraints it doesn't always happen that way. Except for labourers, everyone who works on the shop floor here has taken at least a basic metrology course with the NPL (National Physical Laboratory, the UK's equivalent to NIST). I tend to train people on the CMM myself rather than ship them off for training, as I found after trying a few courses that they came back knowing how to use the machine, but had learned nothing about best practices for actually measuring things on it.

We do have a fairly* robust paperless job management system in place, and all the inspection criteria are established before the job is promoted to production.

*"Fairly" because I made it myself and it's very much a work in progress...

 

[TGTool]

Exactly as I had my business running (3 of us too).
It gave better flexibility and also helped make the day pass faster (LoL) ie, just doing 1x job is boring IMHO, but also as a business that's bad incase that "expert" is on holiday or got another job....
Flexibility and a broad brush is the name of the game IMHO.

Not to mention that broader experience adds something like "hybrid vigor". Knowing machining and toolmaking is an advantage to a tool designer and vice versa. Knowing production needs and practices is an advantage in both tool design and toolmaking. And, yes, constantly doing the same operation is boring.