reefraff
Active Member
I worked for Ricoh Electronics for a while. They were big about including the Japan time compared to the US time on the process charts for the assembly line that the workers followed, The Japan time was always faster than the US time. So after working there a while the lead engineer was telling me about the new fixture we were getting for one of the assembly stations. He said the Japan line was getting a redesigned fixture so we got their old one. I asked how often that happened and he said 'Always". When I asked about listing the Japan time on all the process charts he said it was motivation for the US workers to try harder. If you ever saw the movie Gung Ho Ricoh was just like that. They send all their cast offs to the US then rub it in our face that we can't do the job as well as they did it in Japan.
So I was a lowly field service tech they hired to be an engineering technician. I was out observing the line one day when I noticed they had two stations where adjustments are made in the wrong order. One station an adjustment was made for a sensor that measured the amount of light the machine was producing. Two stations down the line the lamp intensity was adjusted. I mean this was painfully obvious that it would throw off the sensor setting. So I tell the #2 Japanese engineer who's job I think was to interpret for the head guy who didn't speak much English. The other two engineers were Vietnamese. These 4 stood about chattering in their respective languages and broken English for about two hours before deciding I was right. The #2 engineer asks me to re write the processes for each station so the adjustments are made in the proper order. I'm like SERIOUSLY?. I walked over the the lead engineer's desk and took the two process sheets. I changed the number at the top of process sheet 23 to 25 and the number at the top of sheet 25 to a 23 and said "There you go". That was good for another 45 minute conversation among the 4 engineers, After that the lead engineer came over and in the best English he could muster tells me how impressed they were with my ability to correct problems quickly............
So I was a lowly field service tech they hired to be an engineering technician. I was out observing the line one day when I noticed they had two stations where adjustments are made in the wrong order. One station an adjustment was made for a sensor that measured the amount of light the machine was producing. Two stations down the line the lamp intensity was adjusted. I mean this was painfully obvious that it would throw off the sensor setting. So I tell the #2 Japanese engineer who's job I think was to interpret for the head guy who didn't speak much English. The other two engineers were Vietnamese. These 4 stood about chattering in their respective languages and broken English for about two hours before deciding I was right. The #2 engineer asks me to re write the processes for each station so the adjustments are made in the proper order. I'm like SERIOUSLY?. I walked over the the lead engineer's desk and took the two process sheets. I changed the number at the top of process sheet 23 to 25 and the number at the top of sheet 25 to a 23 and said "There you go". That was good for another 45 minute conversation among the 4 engineers, After that the lead engineer came over and in the best English he could muster tells me how impressed they were with my ability to correct problems quickly............
