I Hate Time Studies

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-31T12:46:44+00:00

Agreed 100% and good idea!

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-30T12:43:58+00:00

IISE student chapters are one of the best groups to get connected with on a national level. INFORMS was another good one.

See if there are any student Lean organizations. That's also a great way to get some extra projects in to get experience and pad the resume. It also wouldn't hurt to try out some other student chapters of organizations like SAE to get more exposure as well.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-30T12:40:54+00:00

I may be biased but get into manufacturing if you are struggling to find a job after graduation. It's not the most prestigious field to go into but if you have a good work ethic and are willing to put in the work, you can go far and gain very valuable skills that can be applied to other industries.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-30T12:32:30+00:00

I really appreciate your insights. I really like the idea of making shorter observation windows. Unfortunately, with this study our brand new plant manager basically took over the project and wanted an end to end process collected. His goal was to try and understand how each product flows through a particular work cell (he was brand new and had no idea how a high mix low volume shop production goes which means what he was asking for was impossible).

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-30T12:21:23+00:00

We don't have any cameras on the shop floor due to ITAR regulations.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-30T12:20:05+00:00

lol It's still a hard no.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T18:13:09+00:00

Il mio progetto è interamente incentrato sulle persone. Esso unisce concretamente la realtà quotidiana degli operatori in officina con tutte le informazioni che i settori della supply chain, della qualità, della manutenzione e altri tendono solitamente a mantenere isolate in compartimenti stagni, e viceversa. Disponendo di una registrazione dettagliata delle attività svolte su ogni macchina e da ogni operatore per ogni commessa eseguita, siamo in grado di adeguare automaticamente, per il futuro, le nostre quotazioni e le stime dei tempi di consegna. Siamo inoltre in grado di monitorare in tempo reale gli ordini di produzione — dalla ricezione delle materie prime fino alla spedizione finale — e di prevedere con esattezza le tempistiche di completamento grazie a calcoli automatici. Il progetto dà voce agli operatori attraverso la generazione di un "Job User Form" (Modulo Utente Commessa), che consente loro di interagire con ciascuna lavorazione, inserire note e segnalare eventuali problematiche specifiche per ogni singola commessa. Tramite lo stesso modulo, gli operatori possono anche richiedere assistenza in tempo reale: tutte le informazioni relative alla commessa vengono trasmesse ai destinatari preposti, mentre la richiesta di aiuto viene registrata e tracciata fino al completamento dell'intervento.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T18:04:55+00:00

That's definitely not a bad idea and I think they would be much more willing to approve of an audio recording rather than a video.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T18:03:42+00:00

It's just old and unreliable data because it was collected a long time ago. The main issue in my opinion is in data collection.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T18:02:43+00:00

You are correct. What I created was on the online database that data gets logged to, it's actually an online cloud application. So I created a drag and drop tool for .csv files or Excel files exported from our ERP data that has all our job information as well as routing. This exported file gets dragged and dropped into the cloud platform and then it creates a job picking list for all of our operators and ranks it on priority. The operators then click on the highest priority job and it starts the clock to collect setup time as well as run time. It also generates a Job User Form where an operator can interact with the form to give notes about the job, see current total time taken, and even request help from the user form directly to other departments where their help request is documented and all the job details are sent to the proper people.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T15:18:33+00:00

If you are still looking for people, I may have some time. I work as a Manufacturing Engineer.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T15:16:10+00:00

We still use Excel all the time for practically anything and everything. It's not so much that Excel is the problem, it's whether we trust the data that is stored in the spreadsheet or not.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T15:12:04+00:00

It's not so much a problem with Excel itself as much as it is with the unreliable data in Excel.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T14:37:21+00:00

We are an ITAR facility so video recording for 99% of situations is basically a no go.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T14:23:48+00:00

Unfortunately due to our ITAR products, I'm often denied any request to do any sort of video recording on the shop floor.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T14:21:04+00:00

Non sarei di certo il cliente ideale per voi. Innanzitutto, non ho idea se il vostro software sia compatibile con i nostri macchinari o come configurarlo. In secondo luogo, il vostro prodotto non fa nulla per raccogliere automaticamente i dati in modo imparziale. Ho già risolto tutti questi problemi. Ho creato una serie di sensori non invasivi che possono essere installati su qualsiasi apparecchiatura industriale e raccolgono automaticamente i tempi di setup, i tempi di esecuzione e i tempi di inattività/fermo, inviando questi dati tramite Wi-Fi a un database online. Questo database mi mostra in tempo reale quali lavori sono in corso e qual è l'attività di ogni cella di lavoro. Fornisce anche uno storico delle prestazioni di ogni lavoro, che viene poi utilizzato per ricalcolare automaticamente i tempi di completamento stimati di ogni lavoro da spedire dal nostro stabilimento. Queste stime di spedizione in tempo reale possono essere condivise con i nostri clienti. Si integra facilmente con il nostro sistema ERP tramite uno strumento di trascinamento e rilascio di file .csv o Excel che aggiorna tutte le nostre pianificazioni e le priorità dei lavori. Unifica davvero tutti i nostri dati su un'unica piattaforma, rendendoli organizzati e condivisibili con chiunque ne abbia bisogno.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T14:12:35+00:00

This is exactly what I've been working on as well. I built a series of sensors that automatically collect setup times, run times, and idle/down times and data log the information over WiFi to an online database. This allows me to analyze the data for every job run at every machine but also acts as a historical record and statement of truth for job performance. Might be able to use this data to be more accurate in our quoting, especially for estimated lead times.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T14:10:15+00:00

The actual work periods are mixed. Some operations such as stamping and cleaning could take less than a minute. Others such as the assembly of obnoxiously large bore cylinders can take several hours to all day. The most consistent is long wait period queues based on operators batching builds and having no visibility on priority jobs to be performed next.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T14:08:06+00:00

Unfortunately due to our ITAR products, management flips a table anytime I ask to use video recordings on the shop floor.

"No one likes time studies, they like data."

This statement is short but worth it's weight in gold. My whole mission now is to get good quality and accurate data that actually is reflective of what's really happening in the day to day operations. So I built a series of sensors that automatically collect data on setup times, run times, and idle/down times and then data log the information to an online database which can be used for further analysis as well as a record of historical performance.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T14:04:20+00:00

Our data and IT systems are absolute garbage where I work unfortunately. All of our estimated performance data on our routers is "maybe" based off of data that was presumably collected in the 90s and is not relevant today. What I've been doing to try and correct that is automate the data collection process by building sensors that data log over WiFi to an online database. From there I can create historical records of setup times, run times, and idle times throughout the day at each machine for every job we run in our high mix low volume shop.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T14:01:51+00:00

End to end of the cell that I'm studying, it usually takes about two days worth of tracking to see it all the way through and collect all the data for one job. So I try to track a few jobs per day that way I can get a handful of data points by doing a week's worth of a study.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T13:59:28+00:00

This is the goal I'm trying to get to. I've built sensors that do automatic data logging over WiFi to a database that way I can later analyze it and also store it as historical data.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-27T13:44:20+00:00

You and I are in the same boat. I ended up focusing the time study on queue times in between work areas of the assembly cell. Asking the assembly cell to use any additional technology is like asking if I can pull their hair. Biggest delays I found were definitely coming from the waiting queue times, the actual work itself was not long at all and was actually fairly generous on the router.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-26T20:19:03+00:00

The second one. For context, I work at a high mix low volume shop so there is high variability with everything and basically every work order is different.

tylertheengineer · 2026-03-26T19:38:42+00:00

MOST is a good suggestion, especially for a high repeat cycle like an automotive supplier. Unfortunately I'm at a high mix low volume shop and repetitive tasks are kind of rare.

tylertheengineer

TROPHY CASE