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Newsletter 2004 issue 1 |
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Training
for the Whys
When Bob Armagost recently took over as
quality manager at JIT Powder Coating, the guy exiting the
position gave him a run through of how the coating pretreatment
system worked.
“It was “here’s how you do
it,” without gaining any understanding of why,”
said Armagost.
While the slogan “Just do it”
makes sense for promoting athletic shoes it doesn’t work
so well for running a painting pretreatment system. Understanding
how the chemistry works helps operators efficiently manage
the system.
Train them all
Armagost invited the account executive from JIT’s pretreatment
chemical supply company to come in and review all of the chemicals
used in the system. He pulled in all of the operators who
ran the pretreatment system and had exposure to the chemicals.
The rep went through equipment for testing,
showed them how each procedure worked and explained why they
worked. Staff was trained on hazards, safety issues and how
to test all of the solutions in order to correctly adjust
the chemistry.
“A couple of the guys were veteran
employees. All they were doing was going over the procedures
for treating the solution written by the tanks,” commented
Armagost.
Because they did not really understand why
the chemicals worked and how to make adjustments, these operators
were using twice as much chemical as they needed. These were
the most experienced operators and they were following directions.
When operators understood why the chemistry
worked they could get the biggest bang for the company’s
buck and ensure that a quality product came out of the system.
“The training from the rep saved us
quite a bit,” explained Armagost. “We cut the chemical
use in half.”
“I was an account executive myself
once,” recalled Aramgost. “Account executives should
take care of you. When they do, price is no longer the first
object that you look at when buying a product.”
Pretreatment training
For painting pretreatment, a vendor can provide training on
everything from simple titrations in 10 to 15 minutes out
on the production floor to troubleshooting iron phosphate
systems in 1.5 hours in a classroom.
Check with your chemical suppliers and equipment
vendors and see how your employees could benefit from their
training.
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