Informal Poll - Manufacturing

[Gyro/T69]

“How many of you have jobs in the manufacturing field? How do you like them? Why?”

Twenty-two year in part manufacturing, for a Fortune 100 Company. Second career.
Lead Operator, set-up man supporting a punch press unit. Responsible for meeting daily unit production quotas, delivery schedules and assuring component quality. Facilitator between management, operators and other support personal.

Minster – 45, 100, 150, 250 and 500-ton computer controlled and roll feed presses.
Niagara – 100 and 200-ton presses.
Tranamo - 500-ton robotic load-unload computer controlled press.
Warco – 250-ton roll feed press.
Strippit, Wiederman - CNC turret punch press
 
Numerous secondary operation machines including, straighteners, pem-nut machines, drill presses, timesavers and square shears.

Third career, which is pretty much dead on arrival. Finishing my final four credit hours to receive a Computer Systems Technology Degree, Phi Theta Kappa. Reason for third career, NAFTA.

I didn’t mind what I did. Wasn’t a movie-star job by any stretch of the imagination. The daily attitude from supervision and upper level management was the main problem with it.

“No matter what you did today, it wasn’t enough and it was wrong.”

[capt. apathy]

I started out in the shops. the work sucked but it had more of a future than most other options.

7-12's was not an unusual schedual.  the best part of the shop I worked at was in-house hiring.  all jobs where posted for 3 weeks before they where advertised outside the shop.

started as a laborer mostly sweeping floors and packing heavy loads.  9 months later I had wroked every job in the shop (except tool and die man).  I applied for any job that payed even 1 or 2 cents above the one I was working.

at that job I learned metal fab, lay-out, blueprint reading, basic welding, burning, how to use just about every fabrication machine made.  these served me well when I left for a job in construction.

the bad part about fab jobs is they end, it is almost impossible to keep a job with the same company throughout your career.

but if the manufacturing you are doing is very spacific it's kind of a dead-end trap.  you can be the best in the shop, but one day they move the shop over-seas and you find yourself in your 30's or 40's looking around for an entry-level possition.

[-MZ-]

Originally posted by midnight Target
One of my new responsibilities is to promote manufacturing in California. Right now this is a hard sell, but I may get an audience with the Governator out of the deal....

Who you working for?  Just curious.

Check this link:  
California Association for Local Economic Development

[Charon]

As to why do I work in manufacturing...specially on a Blast Furnace with the Heat....Molten Iron and Slag....100s' of thousands of CO gas being produced a minute etc..Guess I'm crazy. Changes every day....things go haywire in seconds....and can't hold a meeting to decide what course of action should be taken. Guess it's the feeling of satisfaction of a job well done keeping everyone safe..and doing our job in sometimes the most extreme environment, and hazrdous conditions. Sorta like ducking a bullet.

Hajo

That's a lot of what I liked when I worked for a couple of years in a fairly small shop that made heat treating furnaces for the steel industry.

A lot of problem solving with no one telling you how to solve the various daily challenges. This analytical thinking has helped me ever since in my "white collar" jobs. A sense of accomplishment when the 20,000 lb furnace sections were assembled and shipped on the lowboy.  A variety of skills used each day: welding and cutting, painting, fabrication, assembly, painting, running pipe, pickups and deliveries. No political BS worries and a weekend where you could relax without thinking about the job.

The downside was that the small private manufacturing co. was a bit casual in OSHA areas like asbestos (some furnace rebuilding) and its modern replacements which are not much safer. Practically bathed in toulene as a degreaser and paint thinner. A lot of fumes from torch work and welding. Hopefully this won't come back to bite me down the road.

I do some carpentry with the house now (built a nice bar, etc.) but there are times I miss having a mig, bandsaw, drill press, welding table, torch and a rack full of steel. Then I would need a crane to move my finished pieces though

Charon

[Reschke]

Started working in my company in January 2000 as the inventory control/shipping and receiving (logistics)/general labor for steel pipe and elbows that are used on concrete pump trucks. Here we get our heat treated pipes from out parent company in Germany and we are able to cut and weld those pipes to within +.05 mm tolerance for the lengths specified for the pipes on the trucks. Now I am in Sales/Marketing after spending two and a half years sucking dust and pulling orders and sending them out. During that time I learned enough about welding to know I don't want our guys jobs.

At our company we are in the process of expansion and are actively looking for suppliers of pipe and cast material for our elbows. The problem we run into is that we have to import all our steel from our parent company and no US steel manufacturer wants to work in the tolerances that we need for the heat treating of the specific size pipes. Unless we go to getting "mill runs" of the pipe which we can't afford to do. We currently have 10 employees and we rolled out the door last year $4.3 million in sales which were up ~25% over the previous two years. Those two years were record breakers for us at close to $3.2 million

Here in Alabama we are in a manufacturing boom or sorts. The rumor mill is saying that Indian Motorcycle is moving their entire operation here (Birmingham, AL area) and in Montgomery, AL they have a Hyundai plant opening late in the fall. Along with the Mercedes plant (10+ years old) and a Honda plant out near Anniston, AL (for the last 5 years I think). This doesn't count all the little companies that have popped up to supply the car manufacturers here.