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Changing from 8/5hr to 4/10 hr days

PlasmaOnTheBrain

Cast Iron
Joined
Oct 22, 2012
Location
Albany Ny USA
Hi, I'm just an employee and have recently suggested this idea to the boss.
Has anyone here done such a shift and what were the issues and or problems that developed?
The biggest issue the boss had was wanting to have the business open and capable 5 days a week. The solution I had (which I've been discussing with other employees) was to shift who had which day off each week so that enough of the workforce would be present to do whatever job was needed. So one person would have a friday off and another would have a monday, maybe with some sort of rotation(every 2 weeks the day off shifts or similar) if people felt it necessary.

The shop is a smaller job/prototype shop with a few steady production jobs and about 35 employees.
I can fill in any more info that might be needed.
Thank you
Clif
 
Instead of making this subject about how it benefits you, start suggesting he can take 3 day weekends to go fishing/hunting/flying (what ever he is into), and the crew will take care of shop. Good luck with this, business hours are pretty well set and M-F is the standard.
 
4 tens are great. I recommend Mondays off, this is especially good if you travel on your 3 day weekends. Most people take Fridays off and are leaving on Sun morning which leaves you with a lot less people to clutter up wherever it is you are.
 
Hi, I'm just an employee and have recently suggested this idea to the boss.
Has anyone here done such a shift and what were the issues and or problems that developed?
The biggest issue the boss had was wanting to have the business open and capable 5 days a week. The solution I had (which I've been discussing with other employees) was to shift who had which day off each week so that enough of the workforce would be present to do whatever job was needed. So one person would have a friday off and another would have a monday, maybe with some sort of rotation(every 2 weeks the day off shifts or similar) if people felt it necessary.

The shop is a smaller job/prototype shop with a few steady production jobs and about 35 employees.
I can fill in any more info that might be needed.
Thank you
Clif

Humankind has had solutions ever since it was discovered you could not just park a watercraft for the night and all sleep at once at any significant distance from a friendly seacoast nor in foul weather, nor fight a ground war "for real", nor for that matter, avoid being EATEN by nocturnal predators, a great deal earlier-yet.

They all CAN work.

For a commercial operation with paying customers, unless in 24 hour operation already, the problem is coverage for the key-man GAPS.

If "off" when expected to BE "off", no demerits. Noon'ish meals included.

If "we'll have to call you back, I have to confer with <any of my alleged-full-time-staff> and get back to you another day."? Well. customers have THEIR priorities, too.

While you are off fishing, skiing, or shagging some OTHER entity as responds during the "normal workday", gets the work and they no longer NEED to remember your phone number at all.

The reverse can work. As we WERE "the phone company", my Manhattan office picked-up Burlingame's switchboard three hours early, and Burlingame fielded Manhattan's calls three hours later into the evening. No extra staff cost. "Page two" was to chase the Sun. UK, US. Hong Kong, and LIVE 24-7 coverage customer support was enabled by the very "network" that was our product. Facilities based telcos were always 24-hour capable on the technoid side.

Your next-higher SHOULD be looking at it as what works best to preserve and grow the business.

(S)he f**ks that particular dog? You'll have LOTS of "free time", literally "free" as-in no longer a paycheck. Any of you.
 
Actually running a 4/10 schedule.

Half the shop starts Monday ,off Friday.

The other half starts Tuesday ,off Monday

If you really wanted to mess with people run a Mon to Thurs and a Wed to Sat.

Need a lead man or supervisor if something hot comes in...
 
Open?? 5 days a week? You might want to tell your boss that there is some really new cutting edge technology that he may not have heard of.. Really really high end stuff, massively expensive and VERY rare.. Its called the "Cell Phone"..

If you are doing it on 40 hours in 5 days now, doing it in 40 hours in 10 days is really no different. The upside is less gas money getting to and from work.. And the big thing I see from my own perspective.. 3 full days of down time.. That is RE-CHARGE time.

Problems that may crop up.. Do you add the 2 hours at the beginning of the day or the end of the day?? Do you take
off Mondays or Fridays.. Do you split it so half the guys are working mondays and half are fridays? If you are doing
that you might as well split half early half late also.. But in a machine shop, that takes team work and multi tasking...

Also, if everybody is working 4 10's.. It leaves time for that HOT job on Friday, and everybody still gets the
weekend off while banking some OT.
 
I have found it does not work. Because guys tend to cruise during those extra two hours a day.
Yes its still 40 hours in a week. But, 8 of them are far less productive.
3 times when I was in charge, I was talked in to it by employees. And, 3 times I got the same results.
Production suffered.
 
Open?? 5 days a week? You might want to tell your boss that there is some really new cutting edge technology that he may not have heard of.. Really really high end stuff, massively expensive and VERY rare.. Its called the "Cell Phone"..

If you are doing it on 40 hours in 5 days now, doing it in 40 hours in 10 days is really no different. The upside is less gas money getting to and from work.. And the big thing I see from my own perspective.. 3 full days of down time.. That is RE-CHARGE time.

Problems that may crop up.. Do you add the 2 hours at the beginning of the day or the end of the day?? Do you take
off Mondays or Fridays.. Do you split it so half the guys are working mondays and half are fridays? If you are doing
that you might as well split half early half late also.. But in a machine shop, that takes team work and multi tasking...

Also, if everybody is working 4 10's.. It leaves time for that HOT job on Friday, and everybody still gets the
weekend off while banking some OT.

Yahbut.. "Industry" didn't shift from ten-hour days to 8-hour days just because companies were generous nor rolled-over for Unions. Most got the same work done, and with lower risk of accidents nor "stretching out" of tasking. Parkinson was it? "Work expands to fill the time available."

Folks realized human efficiency and ALERTNESS drops-off. Other cultures, Siesta's were invented. Or our natural state, pre-humanoid onward, of breaking our day simply taken into account?

Take note also that seafarers have had more than just two ways of running "watch" duty since forever-ago because crews have to more than just "be there". They are, after all, never FAR away from a "General Quarters" or "Battle Stations" pipe or drum! The needs are not always the same for what is afoot when they ARE "there".
 
I have found it does not work. Because guys tend to cruise during those extra two hours a day.
Yes its still 40 hours in a week. But, 8 of them are far less productive.
3 times when I was in charge, I was talked in to it by employees. And, 3 times I got the same results.
Production suffered.

This was my experience too. I wouldn't do it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Companies have adopted the 10 and even 12 hour work shifts to reduce the number of bad parts produced during the work hand off at the shift change.

IBM, many years ago, ran 12 hour shifts and a 36 hour work week in its disk drive read head operation to reduce the number of bad parts. Staying awake is a challenge.

The system was necessary because of the difficulty in informing the next shift of the status of the process station operation. The operators of the equipment were responsible for the quality control of the product at each station. Continuous tweaking of the process was needed to eliminate defects as soon as they were detected. It was difficult to make a error free transition when the shift change occurred.

In a job shop the hand off is not as difficult. If there is only one shift there will be a loss in productivity from the extended hours and no compensating benefit.
 
My boss seems to think 5 12 hour days is a reasonable amount to work... I would love to do 4 10's, cake walk. I can see it being difficult in practice for some people.
 
So if your work overtime like many shops do and are on 5-10s do you have the same production loss problems?
I don't mean to be rude but that sort of sounds like a people management problem.
Bob

Overtime has to be managed and kept dynamic lest it be taken for granted, the staff go "stale" and productivity - already lower - gets worse.

"Some" reduction in productivity is tolerable because it is cheaper per-hour time than straight time and can drive the FULLY BURDENED human cost averages down "somewhat", and the facilities and equipment costs down even further and faster.

I don't want a building - or a machine-tool - sitting idle for 16 hours out of 24, nor two days out of every seven days. I want to "use it up" faster whilst generating revenue so I can make a change to a better machine or a different machine, different process or product years sooner than my competitor can afford to do.

A Manager is a "change agent", not a Botox beautician, and hopefully never a Mortician.

Staff's job is to make a selection of products or projects. His job is to make a bit of history, not all of it written in money, but that first, as it is fuel for the engines, and a business is always heavier than air, never a dirigible nor free balloon. It can grow or it can shrink.

It is deucedly hard to stand still, and why would one WANT the boredom in any case?
 
So if your work overtime like many shops do and are on 5-10s do you have the same production loss problems?
I don't mean to be rude but that sort of sounds like a people management problem.
Bob

No, not at all. Because there was extra compensation for those extra two hours a day in an overtime situation.
More money makes people happy. Happy people are more productive.
People generally don't like long hours. I am not normal. I thrive on long hours.
 
But....
They also kind of thrive on a extra day off.
It has worked well for me but they all know and see the computer tracking production time and efficiency on each job operation punch.
Exposing this information in real time helps in not having to micro-manage.
Bob
 
If you’re a production shop with a good handle on your cycle times and equipment utilization, 4 tens are a great option for the shop floor. Customer service, and management will need to stick to the 5-day shift however. If you’ve got the work, stack the 10-hour shifts 6AM to 4:30PM and 4:30PM to 3:00AM. I’ve run the shift structure for more than 20 years and believe it’s best cost/output configuration. Friday becomes your OT day and the guys still get the weekend. I’ve had a 3 day 12 hour shift for the weekend too, 36 hours paid as 42 hours – if you have the work it gives you great coverage and eliminates much of the OT requirement from the 4 day shifts.
 
I'm with wheelieking, four tens turns into four eights. If you're working on something moderately hard or harder you can't focus for ten hours straight. At least most can't. If you're doing entirely mindless stuff, sure. If you're the boss, you learn to suck it up.

Plus, it seems like it'll be amazing, but you've got three days to blow weekend money instead of two on the same income. All your friends still have to work. Your kids don't get out of school any later, etc.
 
In my experience much over 8 hours and productivity decreases. Its not too bad if its at the right intensity and the process kinda drives the operator, if its slow - boring or incredibly complex hand eye coordination wise, then quality and quantity suffers.

In the job shop world im still kinda amazed more people dont run Thursday to Monday, then only skeleton staff mid week. Nothings ever broken to my knowledge on a Tuesday or Wednesday, reduced man power on a Monday and friday is kinda job shop suicide but working the week end sure lets you steal 2 days on the competition :-) Thats kinda how i got started, doing stuff when the competition were screwing the missus and were not answering the calls i got. Whats more you get to then charge a bit more for the unsociable hours, which no one minds paying as there shits working again Monday when there staff turn back up.
 
In my experience much over 8 hours and productivity decreases. Its not too bad if its at the right intensity and the process kinda drives the operator, if its slow - boring or incredibly complex hand eye coordination wise, then quality and quantity suffers.

In the job shop world im still kinda amazed more people dont run Thursday to Monday, then only skeleton staff mid week. Nothings ever broken to my knowledge on a Tuesday or Wednesday, reduced man power on a Monday and friday is kinda job shop suicide but working the week end sure lets you steal 2 days on the competition :-) Thats kinda how i got started, doing stuff when the competition were screwing the missus and were not answering the calls i got. Whats more you get to then charge a bit more for the unsociable hours, which no one minds paying as there shits working again Monday when there staff turn back up.

Listen to the man. And when he shops, drives a country lane for a visit, or relaxes mid-week? No weekend crowds and traffic!
 








 
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