Were a prototype company and have been very slow this year. Its Thursday and i haven't even turned on the controller to CMM. Taking Friday off for the 6th week now.
How busy are you?
I am a Quality Engineer and the company's metrologist. Right now I have 5 new projects that I am the QE on, which all require some sort of CMM or Vision programming. So that means I have to manage all the control plans, FMEAs, IMTE, Gage R&Rs, Capability Studies, third party testing, PPAP documentation, etc. On top of that I facilitate 8Ds, reverse engineer, work through quality supplier issues, on top of supporting our internal and external customers.
I am working 60-hour weeks... I could probably be working 80s and still not get caught up. Only programmer here. Hard to stay motivated in your situation Randy, I need to stay busy! Currently programming Full layout, Cap Study and GRR programs for about 40 different parts.
Hey Randy, I'm sorry things are so slow for you. I prefer an easy going pace, but it's just not cool when they start cutting hours.
I'm in an odd state of busyness right now. We are pretty busy, but not too busy. However, one of our customers placed a bunch new part orders with us. Everything is still in the early stages, but I know our department is going to get slammed pretty soon.
One of the new parts is too big/wide for our current 15-30-10 CMMs. We have a new 20-60-15 Global on order. As far as I know, it is the biggest bridge style CMM they make. I can't wait to work with that!
I'm pretty swamped. I have to design fixtures to 3D print. I have to transfer over some part programs from 2 different CMMS to other CMMs so i can get those CMMs calibrated. I have parts from another CMM getting moved to an Optiv for production at our other plant down the road. Create a operation doc for them. An additional special project from the owner of the company. Troubleshooting why CMM inspected parts are not assembling together (most likely missed feature inspection). Possibly move a CMM. Prepare a program of a part that we are going to start making and we don't have a CMM for it yet. Move some parts from a CMM back to a Renishaw Equator so the operators don't have to walk to the CMM. Update current programs to drawing changes. And update my project list at the end of the day so my boss knows what i'm working on. All on me.
We just had a new customer come in 2 weeks ago and tell us that they wanted us running full production of their parts by the following week. Luckily they only wanted a partial PPAP with 2 to 5 dimensions per part programed. however, there are 32 different part numbers that all need dimensional data. All while im handling supplier quality and training 2 programmers. So i have been slammed. Prior to this though i wasnt doing much more than supplier quality and training. It was enough to justify my 8 hours but i was praying for a little more work to soak up the days. Didnt realize my prayers would be answered this way though
