Want to help catch a cheater!!!!

[Doug_Adam]

I agree with Gbradley,
If your boss is switched on, he will be onto it right away, since if it is an honest counting it will indicate either:
1, this shift has found a way of reducing rejects by a factor of 6, which is an excellent opportunity that should be pursued.
2, this shift is missing rejects, allowing them to escape into the market. This is bad for your companies reputation. Either way, a manager should investigate the cause of this discrepancy.

Doug

 

[akreel]

I used to work at a place where the 2nd shift (we ran two 12 hour shifts) always had a higher yield than 1st shift. It turns out the the 2nd shift operator was much more knowledgeable in the field, but had gotten frustrated trying to convince the day shift operator that "his" machine settings were better. So - he would come in at 7:00 PM, by 8:00 PM he would have the machine adjusted to "his" settings (running more efficiently), by 6:00 AM he would adjust the machine back to the "1st shift" settings, and by 7:00 AM he would turn the line back over.

Not to fuel the fire, but I've heard of something a bit more sinister happening. Shift X operator sets the machine to his setttings, which work quite lovely. Then, adjusts them at the end of the shift for operator Y. Operator Y always has to spend the first part of his shift getting the machine to behave, but operator X has no problems. Operator X THINKS he's got job security.

 

[mordred]

There is an option outside of programming to capture what is going on during the second shift. However this option will only work on a PC. At Maximumpc.com there is a keystroke generator program. What this does is when enabled it hides in the background. Then every keystroke, mouse click is stored in a seperate file. I've had to use this in the past to catch a security gaurd going on the internet from an office computer to go onto the internet.

 

[mordred]

one other thing to consider if your night shift is running a much slower production rate they could very well be getting lower reject rates. I know in our inmotion scaling operations here a slower speed does significantly reduce our errors. Especially if your system ties into a common database for its information.

 

[OkiePC]

We changed our counter reset logic to be based on the real time clock in the PLCs for similar reasons. At 7am and 7pm the counters are copied to storage stacks and then reset automatically. You can sell this idea as a time saver for the operators...One less thing they have to remember to do.

OkiePC

 

[Doug_Adam]

Akreel,

Seen that happen. The way we got around it is to pay a bonus on company wide performance. That way, if shift A wants to sabotage shift B, for fun or whatever reason, they are also cutting their own pay in their own pocket (and my pay as well, and the maintnance crew's, and the general manager's). It was funny how the shifts started co-operating after this happened. The operators started talking to each other and leaving messaged for shift C and D on the best settings, problem areas and other things.

I am still trying to get my current employer to adopt the same idea.

Doug

 

[droldz]

Thanks a lot!!!!!

Ok I definitely have rec'd different opinions and ideas. I have caught this shift in the past cheating, but understand, I am not saying for certain it is the tech, it could be one of the operators. Sometimes we switch lot number of one component and therefore they need to start a new lot of finished goods (for lot traceability) so I can't lock it out. I don't want to lock anything for sure. I don't see harm in monitoring and if they are getting those numbers for real and someone doubts them, I may say that I honestly really believe they did achieve this (no harm done) but if they are cheating (for example tonight they ran at 0.169%)then like others have said they are hurting all of us through missing inventory and other items, I'm sure. I haven't done anything yet, I want to think this through, but right now thinking that if I monitor it with programmers permission, what crime has been committed. But I can always do this at the end of this week, but if I jump in with both feet I can't undo it. A lot of good points made but there are some politics that I didn't mention, it's not like I hate working here, but I don't like someone cheating at my expense or those I respect.
I will write back but probably not until 10 days from now because it may not happen everyday and I need to think if I am sure I feel it's ok to do this.
Dr. Oldz