In metal fabrication, dependability, good intentions reign supreme over B.S. work

Flashvector / iStock / Getty Images Plus

Ever wonder how Big Tech can lay off thousands of people and yet still have a functioning product? What were all those now-laid-off people doing, anyway?

It reportedly comes down to the reason investors have loved software since the dawn of the PC revolution: scalability. To make the first product requires massive investment; to make the second costs next to nothing. Well, not nothing. People continually work to improve, update, customize, and integrate (the last two can be a particular bear in manufacturing). But once the product ships and the headaches of integration are in the rearview mirror, the software keeps running.

In Big Tech, most of those recently laid off spent most of their days working on new or future products that, at the height of the pandemic, looked to have a bright future. Now, not so much.

When executives at Big Tech do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, their biggest threat is likely lack of diversification—that is, nearly all revenue coming from one or a handful of products. In these scenarios, a failing revenue-producing product becomes an existential crisis, hence the massive investment in new product development. People get hired, hold meetings, write reports, then hold more meetings. They’re there because of their potential to contribute, but they’re not contributing anything yet. So, they hold more meetings and write more reports. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a place I’d like to work.

Custom fabricators usually don’t bother with this. Sure, they hold meetings to discuss strategy and new business development, but they devote most work to something far more tangible: how to get current orders out the door and how to do a better job in the future. Everyone has a role to play, and everyone depends on everyone else to carry work through the plant. Fabricators don’t have time for, to put it bluntly, B.S. jobs.

Revenue diversification is as important as ever, of course. If fabricators do downsize, it’s usually because they’ve lost a major customer and their revenue was too concentrated to begin with. Today, though, many shops hesitate to downsize even in dire circumstances. They’re not about to let a good hire walk out the door.

When a fabricator lays off or downsizes through attrition, it’s popular to think about manufacturers “automating jobs away.” And sure, in some cases, this is indeed the case, especially if we’re talking specific job functions. One person operating an automatic-tool-change press brake can do the work of two or three people operating traditional brake presses. Such technology helps increase part-flow velocity in high-product-mix operations where smooth flow is always difficult to achieve. Increasing velocity means increasing throughput, reducing costs, increasing competitiveness, and (ideally) bringing in more work. That sounds like a good problem to have.

Thing is, when operators produce more, what happens to those parts? They need to go somewhere. Few shops are full of automated guided vehicles. And even in the most automated operations, someone is usually there scanning bar codes on job travelers next to a pallet of stacked parts from the laser, collecting formed parts from a robotic bend cell, and prepping assemblies for and moving parts from robotic welding cells. A highly automated fabricator might not employ as many brake operators as it once did, but it still needs people to move work through the organization.

And let’s face it, even today, such a level of automation isn’t the norm. Someone still needs to shake parts out of a nest. Maybe one brake has two operators heaving a large workpiece through a bend cycle (the job runs so occasionally, investing in sheet followers or a folding machine isn’t worth it). Not every weld job can be automated, so the shop needs more welders to keep up with the increased throughput. Then comes the grinding, coating, and packaging, and a lot of that still calls for manual labor. I’ve been in a lot of fab shops, and I have yet to see a fully automated packaging and shipping operation. Robots aren’t moving pallets onto trucks—at least not yet.

The best one can hope for is integrating islands of automation. They’re adopted more for their consistency and predictability than their speed. A team of laborers likely could shake parts out of a nest faster than a punch with automated offloading, but the automated offloading never stops, and it always happens at a predictable cycle time. Such consistency pushes throughput through the roof.

It’s a bit like a highway full of autonomous vehicles that drive exactly the same speed and at consistent intervals, always synchronous. Humans caught in traffic might tap on the brakes (car brakes, that is), causing small ripples that eventually turn into waves of congestion. Same goes for operations that require a significant amount of manual labor, be it grinding, painting, or anything else. A shop can promote lean practices to minimize inconsistency, hence the need for those meetings—good meetings, where discussions lead to action and incremental improvement.

When fabricators and manufacturers in general opine about the labor crisis, the lack of operator skill of course enters the conversation. But most owners I talk to are happy if people put in the hours and are eager to learn.

I think a lot of the challenge comes from how people in fabrication depend on each other. When people don’t show up or don’t do their jobs well and with good intentions, people notice—because everyone depends on everyone else to move jobs through the plant and out the door. Best of all, there’s nothing B.S. about it.