slippingaway
Blackhawk
redeux":1ib00ft5 said:
I know a lot is being made of the switch to LEAN manufacturing. As an employee of a $12 Billion corporation that uses Lean manufacturing, I can say that while it's an easy target, it's not the problem here.
The biggest thing that Lean manufacturing does is remove excess inventories and "idle" parts sitting around the factory. Yes, it does lend itself to more tool and machine changes. However, if the process is correct, it will include checks to make sure the machine is set up properly. On our machine lines, we use visual comparators to compare it to the specs before they start cranking out the parts. They also use them to check at predefined intervals.
High Quality and Lean manufacturing are not mutually exclusive. Many of our divisions have a return rate of around 50-100 per million. That's 99.9999% good parts.
Ruger's problems probably stem from a lot of things. One is that most machine operators that really know what they're doing are close to retirement age. These are the guys that learned before computer controls, and learned to recognize problems by feel, or sound of the machine, or pure instinct. There are a lot of new machine operators that are very good, but with automation and computer controls, they're now put in charge of 3 or 4 machines instead of just one, and the wages for machine operators haven't kept pace. They're doing more work for less money.
I also find it funny that earlier in the thread somebody compared the American manufacturers to Toyota and Honda, and others are complaining about Lean. Lean is based on the Toyota production methods which have been in place since the 1930's, and it's part of the reason they were able to take over the US markets by keeping their prices low and quality high.
