Making SOP for new shop floor trainees

[warbird1]

first off, hello. new guy here.
I am the production manager of a aerospace machining and fab shop. i am working on coming up with a SOP to be able to give to everyone (mainly aimed at new guys) that will be basically a reminder/checklist for them to do on every set up and every production run day. That will help instill the habits to becoming a good machinist (mostly operators but they still need the fundamental habits). if you were to build one of these. what would you say are "have to's"?

thank you for any input. all ideas are welcome.

 

[alek95]

Make sure the part is loaded the right way and remember to tighten the vise before you hit the green button.

Unfortunately some of my trainees can't really seem to remember that tho...

 

[jatt]

Clean up your shit as you go. I'm not your f..ing cleaner!

 

[DanielG]

Clean up your shit as you go. I'm not your f..ing cleaner!

At my old job, someone put up on of the "clean up after yourself, your mother doesn't work here". One of the machinists, who's mom did, in fact, work there, wrote "mine does" on it. He did clean up after himself, however.

 

[warbird1]

i was more inquiring into the tips for actual machining. not general shop decorum. more along the lines of checking cutters are sharp. correct radius, correct LOC and OAL. cutter runout verification, shifting for your edge finder (i have a guy who has forgotten to do that more times than i care to remember)

 

[Richard King]

I used to do work for Graco as a contractor rebuilding machines in Minneapolis. They discovered some ways to cut down on mistakes. They made Aluminum fixture plates they had different work holding on and it was kept of there, so when they did a turn over of a machine it was fast. The plates had dowel pins to align them up the same way each time. They bought all the machinists digital micrometers so no math was needed when measuring parts. They had morning meetings to tell everyone how things were going and they could make suggestions. They had a suggestion box where people could make a suggestion and not be intimidated. You see how some like to make off color suggestions here. LOL That happens and you need to roll with it. I was so impressed I bought stock in Graco and it is a good one.
You could call them and ask them what they do? Can't hurt and all they could do is say "get lost"....lol https://www.graco.com/us/en.html

PS: they had a good maintenance dept. and hired good rebuilders :-)

 

[CarbideBob]

i was more inquiring into the tips for actual machining. not general shop decorum. more along the lines of checking cutters are sharp. correct radius, correct LOC and OAL. cutter runout verification, shifting for your edge finder (i have a guy who has forgotten to do that more times than i care to remember)

You want your operators or floor machinists to evaluate tool sharpness, ID a cutter radius, know OLA and runout by looking at it?
Got this two weeks ago and told the the tool a 3 or a 2. Looking at it I'm sure. It not a 2 rad and wondering if a 3. They tell me a bigger rad has chatter problems.
This is a tool engineer for big ass production work with 10+ years in.

Can you tell a CNMG-433 from a CNMG-434 sitting in front of you without samples? I have a few decades in making inserts and I still go to measure it when dropped in my lap.
Assume some sort of tool preset so the SOP should be use it.
All you ask is silly. Tools must be sharp. .....The cure for that is always go get a new tool from the crib and that is what they will do.
Missed edge finder shift. Duh what size edge finder. This documented in the process?
When all the students make stupid and dumb mistakes.......

More here is the deal. If you came up as a good machinist this is all so simple and obvious to you.
It is not to a new guy.
How does one make or write the rules? How do we make sure they are followed? Who has not skipped the all fancy rules or SOP?
Now we are into people. Humans, these are not robots.

 

[ttrager]

first off, hello. new guy here.
I am the production manager of a aerospace machining and fab shop. i am working on coming up with a SOP to be able to give to everyone (mainly aimed at new guys) that will be basically a reminder/checklist for them to do on every set up and every production run day. That will help instill the habits to becoming a good machinist (mostly operators but they still need the fundamental habits). if you were to build one of these. what would you say are "have to's"?

thank you for any input. all ideas are welcome.

I wouldn't hand them a Standard Operating Procedure, per se. I'd hand them a Setup Checklist.

In a past place I worked we had distinct "Job Run Books" with several pages in them, but each page contained concise work instructions and checklists with no extra verbiage wrapped around them. They were referenced frequently by Operators because they were USABLE on the floor and gave them the tips/info required for jobs moving into and out of positions.

Then . . . there was a change . . . with a new Quality Manager that was hired (I was an inspector at that point, previously one of the operators). He made the decision to move pages worth of information out of the main SOPs maintained up front into those Job Books. It was awful, those Job Books almost instantly became worthless, unusable to the guys running jobs because they had to page through a great deal of content that wasn't actually helpful.

Eventually, once that fellow was replaced with another fellow, I was allowed to return the Job Books to their prior state.

Just relating an experience I've had. Checklists and distinct Work Instructions are, IMO, what you want at Operator/Machinist positions, written in a way those people actually find useful. Can an entire SOP fit that bill as well? Sure, so long as it's a short, and to the point explanation of something. In an SOP I feel that would be a smaller, distinct issue, that, if written properly can be useful on the floor.

 

[NikoB43]

Just a few off the top of my head,
1) Measure all stock material before placing it in the machine to run (Sometimes the saw guy sticks a surprise in the lot, intentionally or unintentionally)
2) Try to touch all tools off at the same time, its easy to get distracted and forget where exactly you were in the process.
3) Dry Run, if not Dry Run then step block each tool up to position on the first run at low rapid speed.
4) Check that coolant direction and application is appropriate for each tool used.
5) Ensure any Spot drills are backed off for the first run, the tips are never perfect.
6) Turn your brain on. Be mindful of how you clamp, sounds and feel of machine, fluid levels etc.

 

[eKretz]

It's not easy to make up SOP or procedure sheets for someone else's shop... Almost every single shop I've been in has done things somewhat differently, and the duties that are expected from employees are even often different from shop to shop. The best you can do is go through some of your own work and list out step by step what would need to be done in your own shop for several different jobs. Then look at those lists and compare.

What do you see that needs to be done every time on every job? Add that to your universal list. From there you might look at lathe work and make a separate list just specifically for that. Then mill work and a list for that. So on and so forth. Eventually you'll arrive at combinations of lists that will work well for say, lathe operators, and you give them that combined list. There might be another combined list for mill operators; another for assembly/millwrights; another for fab/welding guys, etc. etc.

I commend you for your effort though. This is a good thing for a shop to have and can help to narrow the skills gap between employees. Eventually you might expand this to training the employees how to actually operate equipment in terms of setup, order of operations, etc. It would be a great help to training new hires and possibly even some veteran employees as well. For complex jobs, a rider sheet is often used to provide a simple break down of expected setups and order of operations.

Something like an SOP sheet is mostly useful at the beginning of training for new hires. Further, more advanced training in actual setup and machining/assembly/welding techniques/procedures can be useful for many. Just got to watch out for the guys that don't want to be trained because they "don't need to be."