On a PS2 line, you have two positions: the operator who loads books and title pages the bulk of the evening but also handles paperwork, and the other position which does everything else. Now the everything else position is rather busy, that is what I have been doing for the past couple of weeks. Now, to give you a descirption of the work in times. The only part of the assembly process I have is loading cases. They comes packages 30 to a bundle and we put these bundles onto the case buffer. The case buffer holds 390 cases on the conveyor and up to 60 on the slope. If the converyor gets down to 60 for more than a few seconds, the assembler stops. So, 330 is the magic number here. The assembler makes 80-82 pieces a minute, so it can eat through those cases in roughly 4 minutes (I will toss out some details that shorten this time for brevity). 4 minutes seems like a long time, doesn't it? Now lets see what 4 minutes allows me to do.
- Change wrap (plastic film on finished product): 2.5 minutes...mostly waiting.
- Common Error: Foil Fail (wrapper forgets(?) to wrap a case): 1 minute...mostly waiting.
- Common Error: No disc kickout (wrapper does not detect a disc in case): 20 seconds to 1 minute...mostly waiting.
- Change triple threat (security labels, but rarely used on games): 2 minutes.
- Change sticker (again, rarely used): 1 minute.
- Inner Cartoner: Loading boxes: about 2 minutes and it is good for 15-20 minutes.
- Common Error: Carton Misfeed: 30 seconds.
- Common Error: Product Miscount: 30 seconds - 2 minutes if with another error.
- Common Error: Pusher Overload: 1-2 minutes and the discs are mostly likely ruined.
- Common Error: CL Turner...something: 40 seconds-1 minute...disc might be ruined but probably not.
- Fill glue pots: 1 minute to do both.
- Change Inner Carton labels: 3 minutes.
- Change Inner Carton Ribbon: 1.5 minutes.
- Common Error: Random label/ribbon issue (too many to list): 30 seconds (normal) - 5 minutes.
- Master Cartoner: Loading boxes: 2 minutes and good for 20-30 minutes.
- Common Error: Carton Misfeed: 1 minute.
- Common Error: Pusher Fail: 1 minute.
- Common Error: Malformed box getting stuck on line: 1 minute.
- Common Error: Box Pickup...for some reason a box will sometimes fall from one conveyor to another that is just sitting there causing another box to fall off every 9 seconds until you fix it, but you have to notice it first because it won't stop the line: 7 seconds/box or you will overload the line.
- Change Master Carton labels: 3 minutes.
- Change Master Carton Ribbon: 1.5 minutes.
- Common Error: Random label/ribbon issue (again, too many to list): 30 seconds (normal) - 5 minutes.
And getting bored with this, I won't bother with the robot stuff, which has to be done in three steps in order not run out of time. Anyways, putting that out of mind, it looks like most of my tasks can be handled in the amount of time listed, 4 minutes. Of course, we also need to add about 30 seconds of walking time. This line also likes to chain errors, so there are a lot of little, quick fix errors. The majority of the evening is spent somewhere between a fast walk and a jog just trying to stay ahead of the errors.
I am hoping that some of the errors calm down some now. The inner cartoner was pissing me off...causing way more downtime than production and eating discs the whole time. I grabbed a couple of techs. After about 20 minutes of playing with it, we were told it was going to be some time before we were running again. Another 40 minutes went by and they told us it was one of two things and would take between 1 and 5 hours to fix depending on which it was. An hour and a half later we were running. They said they were not sure how long it would last...apparently, they were out of the part that needed to be fixed so they hammered on it a bit and put some Lock Tight on it. I laughed at how dumb it sounded, but the line ran almost perfect the rest of the night.
