The Invincible Mortal in the Workplace.

If I could find a way to have all the dishes in my house wash themselves, I would be a very happy man indeed. They pile up through use and fill my kitchen sink. I have so many other things I could be doing instead. Like most people, I wait until the sink is full to address them. I could have cleaned them one by one as they were dirtied, but that feels like too much like work. Now, I have a big pile in front of me and a long process of cleaning before I can move on to better things – like playing with my new XBOX Series X (or Playstation 5, for others.) If I could just throw them into a machine, push a button and let them clean themselves. I’d be back to Call of Duty in no time! Oh yea! The dishwasher can do that…I almost forgot!

Interestingly enough, I recently ran into a situation like this with a service production company that had a technician in the shop working tirelessly with one job to do, and one job alone. He cleaned parts all day long. He cleaned them with a hazardous, toxic and highly volatile solvent from when he first walked in, to when he left for the evening. And not just any parts…..bolts. Large, dirty grease covered bolts that were at least 10 inches long and better used as weights at the gym (IMHO). I watched as this poor guy scrubbed (with no gloves on his hands) and scrubbed these bolts clean in a traditional style sink-on-a-drum partswasher. He would load the basin up with a staggering amount of bolts, grab a wire brush and clean these things until they were all ready to move on to the assembly part of the process at this company.?

I happen to observe this long enough to catch his eye. I think he noticed the ‘why would you clean that way’ look on my face as I walked over and asked him why he didn’t soak these things in a solvent solution prior to scrubbing. Or better yet, why not use an automated machine for cleaning? He mentioned that soaking didn’t do enough to remove the grease, that he still had to clean with a scrubber and therefore that was not an improvement. It was just more work for him to load a bucket, soak and pull them out to clean by hand anyways.?

I asked him again what his thoughts were on a machine to do the work. – deer in headlights look – a machine, like a dishwasher for your parts? He suddenly grinned and said that would be the perfect option, if there was something out there that could. I showed him that there was in fact a machine out there that allows for submersion of parts while agitating them with a rack and fluid agitation through propellers for promoting cleaning in the process. A machine like this does exist, and although it has been on the market for quite some time by many providers, it is still not a well-known piece of equipment. His eyes went big and suddenly he was interested and excited. He took me straight to his boss from there.

I met with his boss and discussed with him. This was the most interesting point. This was a large company and one with a well-known brand name. This boss had been with them for many years. I experienced the same ‘deer in headlights’ look from him as I had from his technician. It was as if I had introduced a UFO to the conversation. With as many machines, equipment and tools out there in shops, it’s sometimes easy to forget that not everyone fully knows about these systems. It is always a surprise when someone does not have knowledge or awareness of things that seem so simple and mundane to you.

Once I was able to show him visually what I meant, he perked up and was excited too. He understood and felt this type of equipment would provide a potential benefit to his production. If his technician could clean twice as many bolts per hour as he currently did, he would have payback on the investment within six-months to a year. It would also provide major benefit to worker health improvements. Less exposure to chemical vapors since the technician would not be hunched over a cleaning sink and elbow deep in solvent every day. It would also improve ergonomic and routine lifting concerns as it would allow for loading of grated baskets that are then hoisted by an overhead crane and into the cleaning equipment. A win all around for safety and productivity.

This company ended up acquiring a machine for automated cleaning, introduced it to the area the technician worked in and went with a non-hazardous, non-toxic and low volatility solution. Production went from 15-20 bolts / per hour to more than 100 bolts / per hour. More than four-times the increase to production in the same activity. At the same time, the technician went from cleaning bolts for a living to operating the machine that cleaned the bolts and taking part in the assembly procedures down the line as well. Production flows were positively impacted in two areas through introduction of automated equipment and worker satisfaction is assumed to be improved.?

In the end, it is a reminder to us all that awareness is contagious, so spread it. If we do not share the information, introduce the idea or ask the question, we may be missing an opportunity for improvement no matter how small or normal it may seem. What we know, others may not. Because we all get into habits and confine ourselves in those boxes of information without meaning to and forget that the world is a much bigger place than our backyard. Speaking of boxes…now my dishes are clean, time to put them away and return to my XBOX Series X!