I am gonna try to be concise though it's not my strong suit; I am an architectural designer (not a machinist) and my wife owns a machine shop. Her shop is almost 4 decades old, approximately 30,000sf and has about 50 employees. It is well run, well managed and reasonably clean/organized compared to the limited number of other machine shops I have seen but in my opinion it is still a bit drab.
There is no natural light in her shop (which just kills me!) and while lighting has been recently updated from fluorescent to LED it still seems a bit too dark to me. The floors are bare concrete and shows signs of wear, staining and cracking. The air is a bit cloudy IMO, though she assures me that she has it tested regularly and it is well within OSHA compliance. The building is your typical rigid frame steel construction; low slope 20ft ceilings, heavy clear span bents painted primer red with [dingy off-white] encapsulated insulation infill. The walls are the same though with corrugated steel panels from floor level to 8ft high. Machine layout is as required for her job-shop style; arranged in work 'cells' of 3 to 4 machines with central tables. Tooling organization is pretty good though in some areas a little mismatched/non-uniform as carts and shelving has been added over the decades.
Overall it's not exactly BAD but to my designer's eye it's just not GREAT. Certainly not a place that I'd want to spend 10 hours a day. As one may expect of an architecturally minded professional, I like spaces that are neat, organized, bright and uniform. I firmly believe that good architecture has a positive impact on productivity, employee morale and customers' perception. Having casually looked into this, I haven't found much insight on the internet pertaining to "machine shop design aesthetics" while I have seen a few images of incredibly clean and bright shops though no indication of exactly what they are doing to keep them that way over time and use.
I am not exactly sure what question I have either; do windows work well in machine shops? skylights? how to you keep floors, walls, lighting and machines looking new? can deep cleaning services be hired? are there newer/better ways to control air quality? how expensive is that? are there better lighting strategies to consider? high bay versus work cell lighting? does good shop design really impact employee morale? Does it even matter enough that I should propose changing anything, knowing it's all just extra cost/overhead? Any insights, examples, tips and inspirations are greatly appreciated. Thanks!
There is no natural light in her shop (which just kills me!) and while lighting has been recently updated from fluorescent to LED it still seems a bit too dark to me. The floors are bare concrete and shows signs of wear, staining and cracking. The air is a bit cloudy IMO, though she assures me that she has it tested regularly and it is well within OSHA compliance. The building is your typical rigid frame steel construction; low slope 20ft ceilings, heavy clear span bents painted primer red with [dingy off-white] encapsulated insulation infill. The walls are the same though with corrugated steel panels from floor level to 8ft high. Machine layout is as required for her job-shop style; arranged in work 'cells' of 3 to 4 machines with central tables. Tooling organization is pretty good though in some areas a little mismatched/non-uniform as carts and shelving has been added over the decades.
Overall it's not exactly BAD but to my designer's eye it's just not GREAT. Certainly not a place that I'd want to spend 10 hours a day. As one may expect of an architecturally minded professional, I like spaces that are neat, organized, bright and uniform. I firmly believe that good architecture has a positive impact on productivity, employee morale and customers' perception. Having casually looked into this, I haven't found much insight on the internet pertaining to "machine shop design aesthetics" while I have seen a few images of incredibly clean and bright shops though no indication of exactly what they are doing to keep them that way over time and use.
I am not exactly sure what question I have either; do windows work well in machine shops? skylights? how to you keep floors, walls, lighting and machines looking new? can deep cleaning services be hired? are there newer/better ways to control air quality? how expensive is that? are there better lighting strategies to consider? high bay versus work cell lighting? does good shop design really impact employee morale? Does it even matter enough that I should propose changing anything, knowing it's all just extra cost/overhead? Any insights, examples, tips and inspirations are greatly appreciated. Thanks!
