u/aggierogue3

We are a contract manufacturer for aerospace and defense. I’m trying to build out a “fool proof” system to catch all customer specs, po requirements, and drawing requirements. We do this pretty well now but it relies on a lot of tribal knowledge on a customer by customer basis.

How do others here handle these processes?

I’m working on building a stand alone spec library. Approved specs are entered with their spec code, a description, where those specs flow down, and word for word verbiage for the flow down.

Then for each order for our flight critical customers, account manager makes a new spec review excel doc and types in the spec codes listed on the PO. Everything auto populates from the library, any new specs are flagged.

Then engineering adds any drawing specs, then reviews and adds any new specs to the library. Once everything is entered it spits out a printable flow down sheet for job steps and the inspection form. Engineering and quality then reference those forms when creating the job and inspection form.

It feels overkill. But at the same time, how can an account manager know what specs are a concern, what specs have been previously approved, which ones are new, etc? How can engineering be consistent with flow down verbiage and knowing what goes on the job and what’s just best practice?

I feel like this excel version will get bloated quickly. Are any of you doing something like this within your erp or another software?

I'm losing my mind on this one. I know it can be done but I'm trying to avoid designing custom fixtures for a small motor that would hold a die grinder cutting disc.

All I need is something like a die grinder or Dremel that can be easily mounted. Does this exist? Or a motor that I can easily mount.

I have some 1" diameter x .023" thick Silicon cut-off discs that I can put on our Dremel. I could go design and build a custom table mount for the Dremel but I really don't have the time for that on this project. I would prefer something similar with a square base or premade mounting holes, then we will use a guided linear rail to bring up our fixtured part for a precise cut.

This is very specific, but if you have any ideas I could use some help. Thank you!

Emotionally, I did not have a heart attack.

My 22 month old daughter is talking more and more, it’s so crazy to hear her thoughts being articulated. This morning I put on my work backpack and said “Dad has to go to work, can I have a hug?”

She ran up to me and got in my lap and started pulling at my backpack and said “No, No, backpack off”. I wish I could spend the day with her! Sad to see her miss me but it’s so sweet at the same time.

I am a plant manager for a smaller plant of 14 employees. We also have our sister plant at 70 employees.

I am running into a few headaches with production planning and management. Back before we were aquired and were just our shop, production management was a complete cluster. Nobody had ultimate authority, it was an awkward mix of decisions between our President, account manager, myself (engineering at the time), and quality. Any one person would move production without consulting anyone else. Also operators would grab jobs out of position to save on set up times for similar setups, often not paying attention to critical ship dates.

Our current state is I am formally production manager, and I have a full time production planner managing our raw material inventory, production schedule, and tooling workflow. He keeps an eye on the schedule and is supposed to share that schedule with each department lead. Then if there is a bigger decision like moving people around between departments, pausing a machine for extended time, or something with a late order, I am looped in. We also hold weekly material planning and production meetings where I review the full schedule with the planner.

Our most senior operator is very frustrated. He keeps saying that production is in no way involved in production planning. I'd love to get them more involved, but they are not trained to dig through our MRP system and formally schedule jobs. I'm also trying to avoid a power struggle between my trainer and the operators.

The scheduler has zero authority over production other than enforcing the pre-agreed upon schedule. Again, when there is a disagreement, I need to be looped in to set the path forward and decide how to balance our customer's needs and optimal production in our shop.

I am very frustrated right now with the planner and will be sitting down with him. He has told me he meets regularly with each operator to discuss schedules; the operators are saying that never happens. I found that our most bottlenecked machine is sitting idle because it is waiting on a secondary op. When I asked what the deal was, he said he has been hinting at the secondary operator that this needs to run.

That is not how this is supposed to work at all, that is offloading production decisions onto the operators. And if secondary is overloaded, I need to be looped in to help shuffle people around. After finding this all out, I pulled two office employees to get help on secondary since it is so backed up. Other than this, the planner does a great job on the material planning and data side, and also is quick to inform account managers of any projected late shipments so we can update customers.

I am going to begin mandatory daily Gemba walks, of which I will join 1-2 a week.

Anyway... how are you managing production in a small shop environment? Am I over complicating this? Then there is the question I need to answer, which is if our planner is cut out for this job.

Our daughter is almost 2. since she was born, every 6 months we have done a blood test, and they all show a small amount of lead in her blood.

We swabbed everything she might have touched, could not figure it out. The doctor kept asking saying there must be something, I gave up searching.

Now we have number 2 on the way and we are cleaning out what was a room full of collectibles and random stuff, and will be new baby’s room. I was just standing there, looking at my 1950s Coca-Cola vending machine. Then thought “oh fuck”. Sure enough, the entire thing is covered in lead paint and has some lead components inside. It seems obvious, but we never checked this room since she had never set foot inside it.

So now I need to sell this thing and decontaminate the baby room 🤦‍♂️

Edit: I did not plan to go this deep into solving this, now I want to know the source both for health reasons and curiosity. Since this is blowing up and I'm getting a lot of helpful comments/questions, here is a bunch of info I have already shared in the comments:

• Why are we doing blood draws on our almost 2 year old?
  • This was recommended by her pediatrician, we have continued to just to make sure lead levels do not increase.
• What are our daughter's lead levels?
  • They have hovered around 2.0 μg/dL. Normally this gets flagged at 3.5, our PCP wants to keep monitoring in case they go up at all. They have not really changed across 3 tests (6, 12, & 18 months) which points to this being a low, but repeated exposure.
• Have I or my wife been tested?
  • No not yet, I plan to get my own test soon
• Have we done a water or soil lead test?
  • Not yet, we are now planning to after reading the comments
• When was the house built?
  • 1978, which means plumbing is unlikely to be the issue, but as many have said there could still be some lead in certain fixtures
• Does our daughter lick/hang out near the coke vending machine?
  • No, she has never touched it and has only been in the same room a couple times. So I was wrong about that obviously in my initial post
• Could it be food?
  • Possibly, but she tested positive before she was really eating solids, and has not had formula in nearly a year. Same thing here, we are pretty much sticking to name brands, not using many spices at all in her foods.
  • Regarding apple sauce, she only eats two brands of squeeze pouches. Neither have had recalls.
• What type of toothpaste?
  • Dr browns, has not had any recalls or lead levels reported
• Do we have old windows?
  • No, we have brand new windows. The old windows did not have paint on the sliding mechanisms
• Does our daughter wear temu clothes, play with cheap knockoff toys, could it be the daycare, etc?
  • No temu clothes/toys, our house and daycare is almost all namebrand stuff. Also she started daycare after her most recent test.
• Do we live near a small airport?
  • Yes, within 3 miles and we are right along the takeoff flight path. No idea if this is a contributor, but could be a factor if our soil tests above normal for lead

Just a little bummed and confused and wanting to vent. I haven’t slept well this week. Work was all consuming today. I was literally talking to people at work about how I was excited to watch the game. Then work got crazy, I stayed late and finally left. Got home and put my daughter to bed, go on my laptop to wrap up more work. An hour goes by and people start texting me about the World Cup win.

sometimes I feel a little hollow and like I’m on cruise control. I used to have climbing, love talking about random things I’d read about to coworkers and friends, would get really into something like the World Cup. I used to have coworkers I would laugh with and talk about random stuff with, now I’m everyone’s boss and I don’t know how to be laid back so my mind is just on work mode when I’m at work.

It feels weird that I could go all day and not know anything going on in the world. Just work, home, work, then sleep. My parents were cheering on the game from a bar with friends, I was staring at my laptop screen writing emails.

Anyway… I will be fine. I love my life honestly. I love being a dad and I like my job. But days like today I just feel like I’m existing though and not experiencing anything.

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Our daughter's daycare just held a little dance recital after practicing for a week. She's almost 2, so none of the kids followed the dance moves. But most were having fun being silly, my daughter just stood there. She also was crying because she wanted to hang out with me and didn't understand why she had to be on the stage :(

Afterwards I told another dad how well his daughter did. He said "Well we dance together all the time, so this is normal for her". I said "we do too, not sure what went wrong!".

Then I thought about it. I don't dance with her much at all. Sometimes if a song comes on in a store, or in a show we are watching. But we don't just put on music and dance. I'll sing kids songs like itsy bitsy spider but that's not really the same.

Anyway, it was kind of a gut punch but I'm so glad I realized this now. We're going to have a dance party tonight!

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Our 21 month old daughter started daycare a month ago. Overall we are loving it and she seems to enjoy it too. There seems to be lessons built in to all the activities they do, we get regular pictures and updates throughout the day, the director is easy to talk to and accessible.

Yesterday my mom called and shared some odd information. Let me add the timing was awful, wife and I were about to get it on for the first time in a minute… thanks mom!

Apparently she was running errands and was driving by the daycare and looked as she drove by, and saw our daughter on the playground. She said she didn’t want to be creepy but wanted to watch her play for a bit, so she parked a little ways away and watched her for a few minutes. Kinda weird, but that’s its own thing.

One of the classmates pushed our daughter over. Then followed her around and kept pushing her. Then the other 2 girls in her class started nudging her, not nearly as hard. The teacher was sitting on the playground on her phone.

Wife and I had two completely different reactions.

My take is they are kids, probably not meaning to be hurtful, and there isn’t some bullying ring going on between four kids under 2. The teacher may have been updating meal info on brightwheel, adding some pics, or being a human and texting a friend for a second. She was still there and I get on my phone sometimes when my daughter is playing.

My wife is concerned that this is an ongoing thing. And concerned that the teacher was not watching. She gets what I’m saying and agreed to sit on it for a day. Either way it really upset her to hear this news and she was crying for a while.

So dads, what would yall do or what have you done in a similar spot? Normally I’d say we talk to the teacher, but I don’t want her knowing that my mom was spying on her while doing her job.

My plan as of now is to take a mental note, and move along. If something else more serious or concrete happens we can take action.