No manufacturing plant deliberately hires someone into the position of “floor walker.” Paying someone just to walk back and forth through the plant doesn’t make any sense, yet many manufacturing plants do exactly this. Worse, the person doing this useless function is usually supposed to be repairing equipment that is down. Meanwhile, operators can’t work and orders can’t go out to customers.
Here’s a typical scenario illustrating how this expensive situation comes about. A tech answers a trouble call. The line is down. The tech then walks back to the shop to get some hand tools and test equipment.
Question: Why didn’t the tech have those items when responding to the call?
Answer: Nobody thought to create a standard trouble call response cart. Good thing ambulance companies don’t make this mistake.
Upon determining the problem, the tech walks again to the shop for a big wrench and other tools needed to work on this particular machine. One thought on how to eliminate that walking is to store the tools in a kit near the machine.