Thermal Spray Production Anecdote

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I have written several articles previously about high volume thermal spray coatings applications. Many thermal spray coatings service shops still thrive on the larger size lower volume applications, where they might plasma spray a roller, a dozen impellers or so, plasma coat two dozen printing press rolls or hvof repair a few compressor cases or so. While it is a little difficult to believe, there still exists a sizeable high volume thermal spray coatings applications, wherein you plasma spray or hvof thermal spray thousands of parts every day. Needless to say, in such high volume thermal spray applications, the price per piece would be lower but the overall revenue based on quantity ends up being rather high. It is imperative in such applications to keep close tabs on powder consumption, target and deposit efficiencies and above all thermal spray production rate. It is this last item that I would like to post this story about. We were dealing with a rather high volume thermal spray application wherein thousands of tiny air nozzles had to be thermal sprayed with Metco 73FNS, tungsten carbide coating using plasma spray process. Nothing fancy. The process was all hard tooled with a shadow mask in the front and the gun had a slight up angle of about fifteen degrees. There was a single spindle set up and the coat time was such that the operator could theoretically put out 840 pieces per day. ( Don’t you wish you had that job in your shop ) Coat time was thirty seconds piece to piece. The booth release process took thirty minutes and all operators were given a fifteen minute break time in the morning and one in the afternoon with a mandatory half an hour taken out for lunch from their pay. Kind of a regimented system but one that is fairly common in most factories at least in the U.S. The job was always assigned to this one older operator who was very dedicated after going through a few other operators who weren’t worth a ruck. These other clowns produced 530 pieces and 580 pieces and such and that was no good.

Well, once the ace operator took over, production rate came up to 820 pieces to 850 pieces just like clockwork day after day after day. The big boss had a smile in his face; blood pressure came down and there was a healthy color to his skin tone ( Ha, Ha ). Three weeks into the job, the operator started producing about 950 pieces to 960 pieces per day. This went on for one full week for the entire fourth week. The fifth week, the ace operator production level dropped down back to about 830 pieces per day. This is where the heart to this post is. The big boss called him to his office all upset and told him that he had started slacking off and that he was not minding his station and so on and so forth and demanded ( demanded , I repeat demanded ) and explanation as to why his production level had dropped from about 950 pieces to 830 or so. To which the operator said, “ Well last week, I decided to work right through lunch and break times, just so I could see how much I could produce and what my capabilities were.” Do you think the boss rewarded him?