What does it take to be the best at the position I am in where I work? I work in a high production machine shop, making front end parts, mostly tie rods, ball joints, stabilizers. My job title as of now is “group leader” my job title seems to change once a year, before that it was “setup technician”. Before I was a setup technician I was the “supervisor”, but after a year of supervisor I realize I did not want to be a member of the management team, and after a restructuring of the plant I become the setup tech. Now that I am a group leader my job duties consist of many other positions in the plant other then leading my operators. I am part quality guy, I am part maintenance guy, and I am part engineer guy. I put on these three hats as soon as I walk in the door, and prepare myself for what is to come.
Now being a quality guy, I need to check parts that operators are making to make sure they are in spec. I look for defects in parts after they are machined and before. I make sure all gages are calibrated, all measuring machines are working, and make sure all operators know what they are looking for when they look at their parts. I also take care of all our Tie Rod assembly machines so making sure all the checks are in place and the operators are looking at their parts and catching defects is an eight hour job within itself. Now a lot of times the inner quality guy, fights with the inner engineer guy, when I find what could be a possible defect. What happens is a part is made, and all the customers’ specification are fine, but it just does not look right. I will then find the part print, and make sure that everything is in spec, make sure all tools are setup right, and the machine programs are fine, and tell the inner quality guy to send them. Without the quality guy making sure everything is in spec. then defects would get to our customers, and without customers, then no job, so the quality guy is very important.
Being an engineer guy I make sure all programs are working right, make sure all the feeds and speeds are fine, the tool geometry is good, and machines are in working order. Tooling is a big, big, big expense where I work. Every month we spend about $35,000 just in tooling, and inserts for the tools, and anything else we use to cut metal. For eight hours a day I have to constantly make sure every tool is working the way it should, make sure it is cutting all the parts it can out of the insert it is using, make sure the tool is cutting the part to the print that the customer needs, make sure all the programs in the huge lathes are working the way they should, and try to figure out ways to lower our tooling consumption. I also try and make machines run faster so the operators can make more parts, to satisfy all the production people in management position so they will get off the operators back about making tons of parts. Being part engineer guy can take eight hours a day on bad nights, and five hours a day on good night, but without engineers the customers would not get their parts cut to the specs that they want.
Now being a maintenance guy is my favorite. My job duties as a maintenance guy consist of troubleshooting machine problems, fixing parts of the machine that break, everyday doing preventative maintenance to machines, changing over machines, troubleshooting broken tools and chipped inserts, and making sure all machine are running in tip top shape. This is my favorite part of my job because I enjoy troubleshooting problems, indentifying the problem and fixing the problem, it is very rewarding when everything comes together like that. If I can’t fix the problem or don’t have time to fix it I will get the real maintenance guys and explain to them what I found and let them take over. I can’t spend as much time doing maintenance as I would like to, because of the other positions I have, but every chance I get, I get inside the machines and look around, because without working machines we cannot make parts.
Being efficient in all three positions and add in a little leadership skills, and we have a good group leader. To be effective and do the job at the best of my abilities I need to be efficient in all three positions, because without one the others will not function right, it’s kind of like having a bad transmission, and only first gear and fifth gear works, I can still make the car move but when I need to change gears it will bog the motor down, spit and sputter and not run right. I have worked here for almost six years, and everything I have learned is because I have asked the questions and took the time to work with engineers and maintenance guys and suck out as much information as I can. I work with a couple of other group leaders that can do the same things I do, and there are a few that cannot and will not even try and it shows. So to keep my transmission working with all five gears I will keep asking the questions and learning more, because that is what it take to be the best group leader I can be.
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3 comments:
This is first class--interesting idea, unusual but correct approach to the assignment, full of author voice. Want to submit this one to the school literary magazine?
No, no thankyou, thats not my thing, but I would like to know why you think this was unusual? I know it does not sound like some of the other essays, which is why I wrote it. To tell you the truth I thought it was lacking something but I just could not put my finger on it. But I guess it dosen't matter what I think :)
It does matter what you think! Part of my job is to try to bring out the inner English teacher in my students, since you aren't going to have me to kick around forever--you need that critical voice inside.
Why unusual? Most essays I see read mechanically; they are assignments and don't have much intrinsic interest. When I read a piece where the writer is explaining something he obviously cares about and has rehearsed to himself a million times long before he ever had an assignment from a composition class, I know I'm dealing with a piece of writing that was begging to be written, begging to get out of the writer's mind. That's unusual.
You're probably laughing now--'begging to be written'! Oh yeah, right! But that's how it looks and reads to this expert.
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