Noodle Making
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Re: Noodle Making
One of the wife's nephews graduated from college with a "safety engineering" degree. I believe he does the same thing OSHA does but works internally for the company. Rarely do I see this guy and even more rarely do we talk about his work, but I have to scratch my head wondering what in hell could a safety engineer actually be engineering? As you point out, safety on the job requires knowing a bit about the job requirements. To get an outside party involved with the safest way to do that job can be counterproductive. A mechanical engineer or an industrial engineer specializing in safety seems more appropriate. I know this kid doesn't have that kind of background and I doubt the OSHA officers do either. Fortunately there are ways to get the job done in spite of the safety requirements.
Re: Noodle Making
This is almost going to sound like a joke, because the story is similar from an early company who did just that.
A company hired several engineers to design a new assembly line that would be more productive than the one they had.
After six months of study, each engineer came up with a new and really expensive design.
But there was this one engineer who never sat down at a designers table, he just wandered around the shop for a week or two, and made notes.
When the day of reckoning came and they all had to meet with the board. All the engineers came in with huge stacks of drawing, except this one guy, all he had was a note written on a tear of page from his notepad.
Figuring he was useless they put him at the end of the list of presentations.
After each engineer gave their presentation, along with the approximate cost to implement their design and plan.
It finally came to the guy with the torn out notepad sheet.
He stood and said, I can double your production overnight, with no added machine or downtime costs on your part.
After the laughing by the other engineers subsided, the board asked the guy how it is possible he could do this?
He said simple. Move all the Right Handed workers to the Left side of the assembly line, and move all the Left Handed workers to the Right side of the assembly line. And have those helping with the larger parts that take two men to lift and set in place work on the upper side of each lineman, instead of the lower side.
The board though about it and said we will try this starting with the next shift and see if your idea will work. We will give it a one week test. On the very next day, after moving the employees around on the assembly line, production doubled, and stayed at that rate the entire week before the next meeting.
This lonely little guy the engineers all laughed at got paid double of what the other engineers charged for their systems which were never implemented. Because he saved the company millions of dollars, and no employee would be laid off during a design change. That is where Observation is the Key to one heck of a lot of things.
A company hired several engineers to design a new assembly line that would be more productive than the one they had.
After six months of study, each engineer came up with a new and really expensive design.
But there was this one engineer who never sat down at a designers table, he just wandered around the shop for a week or two, and made notes.
When the day of reckoning came and they all had to meet with the board. All the engineers came in with huge stacks of drawing, except this one guy, all he had was a note written on a tear of page from his notepad.
Figuring he was useless they put him at the end of the list of presentations.
After each engineer gave their presentation, along with the approximate cost to implement their design and plan.
It finally came to the guy with the torn out notepad sheet.
He stood and said, I can double your production overnight, with no added machine or downtime costs on your part.
After the laughing by the other engineers subsided, the board asked the guy how it is possible he could do this?
He said simple. Move all the Right Handed workers to the Left side of the assembly line, and move all the Left Handed workers to the Right side of the assembly line. And have those helping with the larger parts that take two men to lift and set in place work on the upper side of each lineman, instead of the lower side.
The board though about it and said we will try this starting with the next shift and see if your idea will work. We will give it a one week test. On the very next day, after moving the employees around on the assembly line, production doubled, and stayed at that rate the entire week before the next meeting.
This lonely little guy the engineers all laughed at got paid double of what the other engineers charged for their systems which were never implemented. Because he saved the company millions of dollars, and no employee would be laid off during a design change. That is where Observation is the Key to one heck of a lot of things.
Re: Noodle Making
I'm pretty sure it takes more than observation to come up with good ideas, and you have what it takes. All those engineers in your story looked at the same situation and each came up with a different solution. None of them saw that production line the same way as did the others. That's because observations are subjective. Thinking out of the box for solutions is generally the best solution, but most professions and trades are populated with well disciplined workers. You told me about it a time or two when you met tradesmen who only knew how to to things their way and no other. So, their way was the best way. I sat in on a few "brainstorming" sessions and it was amazing what can come out of them. Usually it's a solution nobody thought of before because it involved doing something not traditional.
Re: Noodle Making
Working in the field around several tradesman over the years.
I've learned one thing I consider important that many other may not.
Those who learned the hard way, by doing things hands-on, without much outside help, figured out ways of doing things not found in the training manuals.
There's nothing wrong with being trained for a job, but more often than not you are trained to do something one way and one way only, because it is the fastest, but not necessarily the best way, because the best way is too time consuming.
There are a lot of jobs in the construction industry that are a minimum of two man jobs, either because of the weight involved, or because it saves a lot of time.
Then along comes a guy who had to work by himself most of his career and found ways to do two man jobs fast and efficiently all by his lonesome. In some cases even faster than two men could keep up with him.
You watch his techniques and learn from them!
I was fortunate to have a cousin who was a master architect. I was buying the old look alike row houses, and he would design a new facade for the front of the house that in many cases cost less than merely fixing and painting them.
Made them look unlike anything else on the street, and with more modern design without going overboard to make it stick out like a sore thumb in an old neighborhood. Unfortunately he moved to Colorado, but then I was winding down doing city houses also.
What made him so great is he though outside the box, so to speak. But more importantly, unlike many architects who design things that are costly and nearly impossible to build, very time consuming. He designed changes in such a way that it used a minimal amount of materials, and very easy to put together fairly cheaply and efficiently.
Plus it made the house look like a million bucks. The curb appeal was so high, the house sold before we even started work on the inside. Amazing!
I've learned one thing I consider important that many other may not.
Those who learned the hard way, by doing things hands-on, without much outside help, figured out ways of doing things not found in the training manuals.
There's nothing wrong with being trained for a job, but more often than not you are trained to do something one way and one way only, because it is the fastest, but not necessarily the best way, because the best way is too time consuming.
There are a lot of jobs in the construction industry that are a minimum of two man jobs, either because of the weight involved, or because it saves a lot of time.
Then along comes a guy who had to work by himself most of his career and found ways to do two man jobs fast and efficiently all by his lonesome. In some cases even faster than two men could keep up with him.
You watch his techniques and learn from them!
I was fortunate to have a cousin who was a master architect. I was buying the old look alike row houses, and he would design a new facade for the front of the house that in many cases cost less than merely fixing and painting them.
Made them look unlike anything else on the street, and with more modern design without going overboard to make it stick out like a sore thumb in an old neighborhood. Unfortunately he moved to Colorado, but then I was winding down doing city houses also.
What made him so great is he though outside the box, so to speak. But more importantly, unlike many architects who design things that are costly and nearly impossible to build, very time consuming. He designed changes in such a way that it used a minimal amount of materials, and very easy to put together fairly cheaply and efficiently.
Plus it made the house look like a million bucks. The curb appeal was so high, the house sold before we even started work on the inside. Amazing!
Re: Noodle Making
When we had our last house built the general contractor came from 30 miles away to do the job. He didn't know any jobbers in the area so he called a few of the local shops to see if they would be willing to apply their trade to building my house. Nobody wanted to work for a contractor. It wasn't a matter of pay, but the quality of work demanded by a contractor isn't the same as what they would do for their own customers. I met the plumber they approached and he told me exactly that. He is accustomed to doing a good job with the proper parts, but a contractor is always trying to reduce the costs one way or another. He just couldn't work under those conditions.
Re: Noodle Making
Wow, you would have loved hiring me when I was a general contractor. We never cut corners, ever. Always used quality materials, usually selected by the customer themselves. Did things to make the work better than most other contractors never thought about doing, and normally at no extra charge to see the job was done better than right.
The best part, our final price was normally cheaper than their lowest estimate, and we never underpaid those who did work for us who were not direct employee's. I normally hired out things like ductwork for two reasons. They could do it faster than I could, and even though they had a higher pricing scale, it would come out cheaper than having my crew do it, and better too, usually. Guy's who do it all day every day are usually fairly fast, and as you said, they don't like to cut corners. But if they know you let them do it their way, and for their normal price, they usually jump on the jobs we had.
My biggest problem was finding independents who were non-union and licensed. Fairly hard to do in a union city like St. Louis. Many of those who did work for me were retired union workers. This worked out well for several years, until their unions said if they keep working for me, they would lose their pension. I think it was just a threat, but most of them did quit taking jobs from us. No biggie really, it was when I started downsizing right after anyhow.
The best part, our final price was normally cheaper than their lowest estimate, and we never underpaid those who did work for us who were not direct employee's. I normally hired out things like ductwork for two reasons. They could do it faster than I could, and even though they had a higher pricing scale, it would come out cheaper than having my crew do it, and better too, usually. Guy's who do it all day every day are usually fairly fast, and as you said, they don't like to cut corners. But if they know you let them do it their way, and for their normal price, they usually jump on the jobs we had.
My biggest problem was finding independents who were non-union and licensed. Fairly hard to do in a union city like St. Louis. Many of those who did work for me were retired union workers. This worked out well for several years, until their unions said if they keep working for me, they would lose their pension. I think it was just a threat, but most of them did quit taking jobs from us. No biggie really, it was when I started downsizing right after anyhow.
Re: Noodle Making
There is a strike in progress at GM as I write this. Apparently the unions are negotiating for higher wages and better medical benefits. I guess it doesn't matter that members of the UAW are among the highest paid workers in the country. Their medical and retirement benefits are outrageously high. More power to them for being able to achieve that. But now they want even more which is going to add to the cost of the vehicles they make. You know who is going to pay for those union demands, right?
Re: Noodle Making
These chintzy cars they build today are so grossly overpriced as it is, I honestly only know a couple of people who can afford them, and not a person I know can do it with a 3 year auto loan, most would need at least 5 or more years.
I saw where GM was closing their Mexico Pick-up truck plant. Heck, it looks to me like they should close their Flint Michigan Plant and move it to Mexico.
I saw where GM was closing their Mexico Pick-up truck plant. Heck, it looks to me like they should close their Flint Michigan Plant and move it to Mexico.
Re: Noodle Making
I don't know how typical this is, but several years ago Ford workers went on strike. It came out in the press that something around $10,000 of the new car price was for benefits paid to employees. So when you are paying, say, $25,000 for a new car, it's costing them something less than $15,000 to manufacture it. Well yeah. You can't build a decent car for that price now and days.
Then there is this Bentley I keep talking about. LOL They start out over $300,000 new. Sure, there are a few luxury items in a car like that, but the quality is unmatched. I truly think that's what it takes to build a decent car in today's world.
Then there is this Bentley I keep talking about. LOL They start out over $300,000 new. Sure, there are a few luxury items in a car like that, but the quality is unmatched. I truly think that's what it takes to build a decent car in today's world.
Re: Noodle Making
How can dealers give 6 to 10 thousand dollars off the sale price of a car if they were not already grossly overpriced?
In 1969 I bought a brand new sports car off the dealer showroom floor for 850 dollars.
I bought a second one in 1970 and it cost 1,000 dollars, and a third in 1971 for 1,200 dollars.
In 1974 I bought the frau a full-sized American made car, it cost 3,400 dollars.
Then in 1976 I bought that 50th Anniversary Special Edition Trans-Am. A regular Trans-AM with the same engine and transmission sold for around 4,800 to 5,200 dollars. The one I bought was 16,000 dollars, but I had money to waste back then too.
Over the course of about 40 years. Import cars only increased in price by about 8,000 dollars.
However, during that same time, American made cars of the same quality increased by a whopping 45,000 dollars.
While the overall average Salary paid to employees has only increased about 9 to 10 thousand dollars.
This is one reason why imported cars have taken the lead in car sales, although they too have been jumping up in price comparable to American made cars this past decade.
As far as I'm concerned, what few properly built American made cars still available are priced well beyond most salaried employees means to purchase. So the American car companies came out with chintzy hazardous cars that sell for less, but still grossly overpriced for what they are. I sure don't want one of them, even if I could afford it.
In 1969 I bought a brand new sports car off the dealer showroom floor for 850 dollars.
I bought a second one in 1970 and it cost 1,000 dollars, and a third in 1971 for 1,200 dollars.
In 1974 I bought the frau a full-sized American made car, it cost 3,400 dollars.
Then in 1976 I bought that 50th Anniversary Special Edition Trans-Am. A regular Trans-AM with the same engine and transmission sold for around 4,800 to 5,200 dollars. The one I bought was 16,000 dollars, but I had money to waste back then too.
Over the course of about 40 years. Import cars only increased in price by about 8,000 dollars.
However, during that same time, American made cars of the same quality increased by a whopping 45,000 dollars.
While the overall average Salary paid to employees has only increased about 9 to 10 thousand dollars.
This is one reason why imported cars have taken the lead in car sales, although they too have been jumping up in price comparable to American made cars this past decade.
As far as I'm concerned, what few properly built American made cars still available are priced well beyond most salaried employees means to purchase. So the American car companies came out with chintzy hazardous cars that sell for less, but still grossly overpriced for what they are. I sure don't want one of them, even if I could afford it.
Re: Noodle Making
All I'm saying, at least in the case of Ford Motor Company, is that the cost of any new automobile includes the salary and benefits given to their employees. The salary of any given Ford employee is less than half what it costs to keep them. There are a myriad of other benefits, such as health insurance and pension plans, that go into the $10,000 figure I quoted. When you say the quality of the cars Ford (or anyone else) sells is low, a good part of the reason for that is that nobody could afford to buy one if the quality was high. And the quality is forced to be as low as it is due to things like union workers demanding exorbitant wages and benefits. Perhaps unions in foreign countries are not as strong or don't exist. When Toyota doesn't have to add $10k to the MSRP because of what they are paying their employees, they can put that extra money into the quality and sell for the same prices as their American counterparts.
Re: Noodle Making
When we owned the florist, drivers from other florists were joining unions.
But when they came to our shop to try to convince our drivers to join, they hit a big problem.
We already offered a higher wage than union scale, but perhaps not as many benefits.
But the biggest snag was the unions own rules. The same rules that prevented me from getting ahead if I joined the union.
2/3 of our drivers were either off-duty police or firemen and they already belonged to their respective unions.
And they were not about to give up their police or fireman's union to join a delivery union, hi hi.
When I hired workers during my period as a general contractor and even before then.
I normally paid my workers well, and they knew they would not get bumped like happened with their previous union jobs, if they stayed in their unions. Can't say this about the retired guys I had working for Handymenders though. They were union through and through, but being retired they would do work for me for seniors, until the union told them to stop or they would lose their pensions. I guess we were getting to big back then, and doing work for seniors for rock bottom prices or lower.
It was a good stint while it lasted.
But when they came to our shop to try to convince our drivers to join, they hit a big problem.
We already offered a higher wage than union scale, but perhaps not as many benefits.
But the biggest snag was the unions own rules. The same rules that prevented me from getting ahead if I joined the union.
2/3 of our drivers were either off-duty police or firemen and they already belonged to their respective unions.
And they were not about to give up their police or fireman's union to join a delivery union, hi hi.
When I hired workers during my period as a general contractor and even before then.
I normally paid my workers well, and they knew they would not get bumped like happened with their previous union jobs, if they stayed in their unions. Can't say this about the retired guys I had working for Handymenders though. They were union through and through, but being retired they would do work for me for seniors, until the union told them to stop or they would lose their pensions. I guess we were getting to big back then, and doing work for seniors for rock bottom prices or lower.
It was a good stint while it lasted.
Re: Noodle Making
Motorola had the same strategy as you did to keep the unions at bay. They would do an annual survey of the major companies in our area who were unionized. Salaries at Motorola were made equivalent or better. The selling point was that Motorola employees could get union scale but didn't have to pay the dues or go on strike. I only recall one vote in the 36 years I worked there and the unions lost by a wide margin. Frankly they didin't bother us much because they knew they didn't have a chance of getting in.
The sad part of this story is that we were the last company in America to manufacturer cell phones on our own soil. We could not compete with the low prices from overseas companies. It came down to a choice of moving manufacturing out of the country, or going out of business. 40,000 people lost their jobs, but the company stayed in business. That's the reason I was able to get a pension from them.
The sad part of this story is that we were the last company in America to manufacturer cell phones on our own soil. We could not compete with the low prices from overseas companies. It came down to a choice of moving manufacturing out of the country, or going out of business. 40,000 people lost their jobs, but the company stayed in business. That's the reason I was able to get a pension from them.
Re: Noodle Making
I had an aunt who worked her entire life for a division of the Cupples company.
I don't know what kind of legal tricks they pulled, because although they were still in business, when they sold off or closed certain divisions of the company, those who worked only in those divisions ended up losing most of their pensions.
They would have lost all of their pension if it were not for a trust account required by the County to contain something like 1/3 of promised pensions. But that don't mean an employee would get 1/3 of their pension if the company folds.
Another aunt who worked for a big company that did close, she got all of her pension, because all of it was paid into a trust account for each employee.
I was never so lucky. Never at a company long enough for them to start fueling a trust retirement fund.
I don't know what kind of legal tricks they pulled, because although they were still in business, when they sold off or closed certain divisions of the company, those who worked only in those divisions ended up losing most of their pensions.
They would have lost all of their pension if it were not for a trust account required by the County to contain something like 1/3 of promised pensions. But that don't mean an employee would get 1/3 of their pension if the company folds.
Another aunt who worked for a big company that did close, she got all of her pension, because all of it was paid into a trust account for each employee.
I was never so lucky. Never at a company long enough for them to start fueling a trust retirement fund.
Re: Noodle Making
Motorola managed their pension fund all by themselves for a long time. I believe there is some sort of federal law that requires a cash reserve to be set aside, but I'm not familiar with the particulars. Near the end of my time with them they decided it was too expensive to manage the fund and handed it over to Prudential Financial. Actually, it turned out that the pension money was used to buy a mongo huge annuity to cover all the pensioners. That is how I get my checks these days; from the annuity. I don't recall for sure, but I think they stopped offering pensions shortly after I left. They did have profit sharing, and still do as far as I know. I was lucky to escape when I did. The benefits went downhill afterwards. Heck, the company broke up into two pieces and the division I worked for is now owned and operated by a Chinese company. I'd have to move to China if I wanted to retain my job. LOL
Re: Noodle Making
The department I was in at two different companies had moved eons ago. One to Louisiana, and the other first to DC and then to Japan I think. None of the employees moved to Japan with them. Understandable, since another new local company was hiring nearly everyone in the field.
Locally here, Amazon bought out a wire forming company, and also a mattress batting company. Neither company changed their names, but their signs now have the Amazon arrow added under the name, or in the corner. All the employees paychecks now come from Amazon. On the bright side, their benefits went up for everyone, and a few got raises too.
So far, nothing has changed as for as how the work is done, and if it were not for a new name on the paycheck, they wouldn't know much of anything has changed at all. Yet!
We know the biggest customer of the wire forming company was Serta, and the biggest customer of the batting company was Simmons. But apparently Serta and Simmons have joined forces somehow and spun off a new brand Serta/Simmons mattresses, besides their independent brands.
Both of those first companies mentioned are fairly large employers here.
Locally here, Amazon bought out a wire forming company, and also a mattress batting company. Neither company changed their names, but their signs now have the Amazon arrow added under the name, or in the corner. All the employees paychecks now come from Amazon. On the bright side, their benefits went up for everyone, and a few got raises too.
So far, nothing has changed as for as how the work is done, and if it were not for a new name on the paycheck, they wouldn't know much of anything has changed at all. Yet!
We know the biggest customer of the wire forming company was Serta, and the biggest customer of the batting company was Simmons. But apparently Serta and Simmons have joined forces somehow and spun off a new brand Serta/Simmons mattresses, besides their independent brands.
Both of those first companies mentioned are fairly large employers here.
Re: Noodle Making
The same situation happened at Motorola. One of the major stock holders decided that the original company needed to be broken into two separate companies; the cell phone manufacturing was to break away from the rest of the company. That happened after I was forced to retire and the competition really cranked up. Motorola cell phones, even though they were being made in China, still were too expensive to be competitive. This had the effect of dragging down the profits of the rest of the company, which is why the big stock holder pushed for a sell off. The rest of the company was doing fine selling radios to police and fire departments worldwide. It took a long time to find a buyer, but I think Lenovo is the company that bought the cell phone operation. They kept the Motorola name and logo as did the parent company. But now and days it's Motorola Solutions USA for the parent company. Oddly enough the parent company closed down their corporate headquarters in Schaumburg, Illinois, and moved all their manufacturing to a Chicago suburb taking 5000 jobs with them. The break away company making cell phones is still in the same building with many of the same employees. Not only that, but cell phones are now profitable for them.
Re: Noodle Making
Electronics is a cut throat business for sure!
Appliances not so much, became the same manufacturer makes each companies models for them.
They are all basically the same, but with minor cosmetic differences.
Then there are things like AC units. I know the heat pump I bought came with 6 or 7 different brand labels to be applied to the unit by the installer. I chose the one that said Anderson Air, simply because it was the nicest looking of the logos, hi hi.
Appliances not so much, became the same manufacturer makes each companies models for them.
They are all basically the same, but with minor cosmetic differences.
Then there are things like AC units. I know the heat pump I bought came with 6 or 7 different brand labels to be applied to the unit by the installer. I chose the one that said Anderson Air, simply because it was the nicest looking of the logos, hi hi.
Re: Noodle Making
When you talk of a single manufacturer supplying nearly an entire market I think of eyeglasses. There are a few companies who make those frames but one controls about 80% of all the brands. I had to look it up to see who it was because I didn't remember the name from when I first read about it; Luxottica is the dominant manufacturer. The company claims they are not a monopoly, but that's only technically true. In most places it will be a hundred or even several hundred dollars to purchase a pair of glasses. The cost to manufacture is under $30. I'm not sure who to blame for that incredible markup because the same thing is going on in the glasses frame business as is in the smartphone market where Apple is obviously gouging it's customers (as are others). The claim is they are charging only what the market will bear. People will pay extra for an iPhone and know it. Same goes for Versace and Rayban glasses. It doesn't seem right, but as long as people are willing to pay the high price, the sellers will comply with their wishes.
Re: Noodle Making
You got that right.
All of my eyeglasses since moving south have been made by a company with the initials CK.
A little checking proved they were distributed by Calvin Klein, so who manufactures them.
Turns out a company named PVH Corp. is who makes Calvin Klein and Marchon glasses, plus many other brand names.
PVH is Phillips-VanHeusen clothing company. PVH owns hundreds of companies worldwide. Everything from Awnings to Zippers, and probably Luxottica too, hi hi.
All of my eyeglasses since moving south have been made by a company with the initials CK.
A little checking proved they were distributed by Calvin Klein, so who manufactures them.
Turns out a company named PVH Corp. is who makes Calvin Klein and Marchon glasses, plus many other brand names.
PVH is Phillips-VanHeusen clothing company. PVH owns hundreds of companies worldwide. Everything from Awnings to Zippers, and probably Luxottica too, hi hi.