Raising skills and job satisfaction go together
22 February, 2010
My last piece on successful investment brought up some thoughts on the human consequences of change in the workplace and on the ever-advancing modernity in manufacturing. This is a deep issue. Many social movements have been founded specifically to resist the process and much social damage has also been inflicted by it. It’s to do with change again: At Ceramicx, our two new Safan metal sheet and metal folding machines, provided us with an opportunity to rethink and redo the way we manufactured for infrared heating. Once again, digital technology was the catalyst and a new skillset of designing for programming opened up. Investment in training and learning was needed for sure but the results are now paying back ten fold. Digital of course advances issues of data storage and replication. Our new Safan controls not only offer fail safe accuracy, the fact that they are programmable ensures identical repeatability of the job, regardless of scale. This means that Ceramicx can machine custom parts at volume with no loss of quality. Moreover digital programming means that the speed and throughput of each new and bespoke job has been greatly increased – as has the consequent time-to-market. Needless to say a good deal of machine-minding time has now been made redundant – but in no way does this make our people redundant. It means more time for innovation; more time for research and development and – above all – more time for the customer and for customer service. The best tools are created in fact to free up time that should be spent with the customer – assessing needs and then exceeding them. At Ceramicx we are pursuing this philosophy throughout our operation. You may have read of our new investment in semi-automated quality assurance – a scheme that we will be introducing into our market this year. In addition we are also scoping out several projects for general factory automation – moves that will, again, free our people to work at value added part of the job - ie the creative and innovative end of infrared technology. As the digital age advances, check at any moment to see whether you are servant or master – and adjust accordingly.
22 February, 2010
My last piece on successful investment brought up some thoughts on the human consequences of change in the workplace and on the ever-advancing modernity in manufacturing. This is a deep issue. Many social movements have been founded specifically to resist the process and much social damage has also been inflicted by it. It’s to do with change again: At Ceramicx, our two new Safan metal sheet and metal folding machines, provided us with an opportunity to rethink and redo the way we manufactured for infrared heating. Once again, digital technology was the catalyst and a new skillset of designing for programming opened up. Investment in training and learning was needed for sure but the results are now paying back ten fold. Digital of course advances issues of data storage and replication. Our new Safan controls not only offer fail safe accuracy, the fact that they are programmable ensures identical repeatability of the job, regardless of scale. This means that Ceramicx can machine custom parts at volume with no loss of quality. Moreover digital programming means that the speed and throughput of each new and bespoke job has been greatly increased – as has the consequent time-to-market. Needless to say a good deal of machine-minding time has now been made redundant – but in no way does this make our people redundant. It means more time for innovation; more time for research and development and – above all – more time for the customer and for customer service. The best tools are created in fact to free up time that should be spent with the customer – assessing needs and then exceeding them. At Ceramicx we are pursuing this philosophy throughout our operation. You may have read of our new investment in semi-automated quality assurance – a scheme that we will be introducing into our market this year. In addition we are also scoping out several projects for general factory automation – moves that will, again, free our people to work at value added part of the job - ie the creative and innovative end of infrared technology. As the digital age advances, check at any moment to see whether you are servant or master – and adjust accordingly.
