For context I’m an automatic machine operator, my job responsibilities are to load and unload parts into machines.
Today was particularly miserable. From the start of my shift I had machine issues.
My boss has been insisting that if I don’t unwrap parts and prepare/organize the production line I could have significantly higher production. He believes that I need to perform the steps involved in setting up while machines are mid-cycle. He won’t listen to my plight that all the time mid-cycle is accounted for as I run a production line with four machines and a manual gauge inspection. It’s a time management problem and discussing such issues always gets into the weeds of it all, there’s too many details and trade-offs involved. To be serious about it we’re talking about 8 to 12 minutes at the start of shift and I usually ignore him because come on really?
Today the first machine in the line went down two parts in and the third machine made bad parts. I immediately notified the technicians about the problems and when I was out of things to do I informed my boss and he had another task I was able to complete in the meantime, it was over an hour as the technician who was to fix the first machine was in a meeting and had many other pending tasks in other departments which had higher priority so even when he was out of his meeting he was occupied. Ultimately I wasn’t running my production line normally until an hour and a half into my shift. My production numbers reflect this. I report my machine downtime over the radio as promptly as I possibly can but my boss insists if I perform the shift set-up while I work instead of before I work that he’d have heard about the need for the technician sooner.
He kept me after for 20 minutes today to tell me that we lost two hours of production (exaggeration on his part ig) because I was spending time moving carts and filling totes when I should have simply started running the machines immediately so he could be notified of machine downtime sooner.
I’m stressed out about my work moving forward because now it’s not just machine downtime I have to worry about but my boss’s micro-managing of the time management problems I face running four machines. It’s a constant battle with my boss trying to convince him that machine downtime can’t be compensated for with his purportedly big brain time management skills. The only thing that will make production meet the projected targets is if the machines are operating as expected. How come it’s workers who are bullied and berated when equipment fails?