Production Slowdown? Get Depends Dammit!
 

Ford Has a Better Idea: Shorter Potty Breaks
and the silly news story of the day belongs to.........

But, I'll go with it...

An average shift is 8 hours... (i'm guessing) is 48 minutes of bathroom time excessive? That's 6 minutes per hour to go to the bathroom... Does the average person go to the bathroom once an hour?

Dirty laundry?

I didn't think production slowdowns were an issue with those lines right now (truck/SUV). Didn't Ford just post a $.25bil loss this past qtr with sales of the big vehicles dropping through the floor?

Morale can't be great. I'd probably aggravate the situation by burning my break time around the water cooler. :)

Where I live, you are allowed 2x15 minute breaks and a half-hour for lunch, when working for an 8 hour day.

Then again, when you work on an assembly line, I would think it reasonable to allow workers 6 minutes per hour (or lets say, 3 minutes every 30) to stretch, take a break, grab a drink of water, fix clothing/tools needed on the line.

When you look at the assembly line process and you explode he figures with the scale of Ford, you get some startling numbers:

Ben's fictional Production Line factory...
Assumptions -
1000 workers
12 dollars per hour
8 hour "on-site" per day
2000 hours of work per year (50 weeks x 40 hours)

Well, if you look at it, you are spending 12,000 dollars per hour on labour on your plant. If you are a manager, you have to appreciate that the workers you supervise and are responsible for are making your yearly wage every five hours.

Now, consider that a one minute break by your production line equals a thousand minutes in labour. That equals 16 2/3 hours. that equals 200 dollars in actual monies paid for doing nothing.

If you are a manager, you want that to not happen. One minute of production time per hour equals 400,000 per year, in labour. Six minutes per hour per year = 2,400,000 dollars.

In this scenario, we are talking about 6 minutes per hour, and the workers are certainly making more than 12 bucks an hour. Are there a thousand workers on the line? I don't know what a typical Ford production line looks like.

What managers, bean-counters and "efficiency experts" don't know (or quickly forget) is that production line work is hard. Your muscles start to hurt from the repetitive motion. You are stressed out because you don't want to be the one to hold up the line. Your tools wear out, and you need to replace them. You occasionaly need to wipe the sweat from your brow...

If the worker feels that every second is being accounted for, that will quickly burn them out. There has to be some flexibility in the system so that the workers feel good, or they will start to get hurt, or go on stress/sick leave.

But imagine you are responsible for the labour budget. I am your boss and I tell you that 2.4 million dollars is too much flexibility in the budget you submitted. What are you running here, a fucking day spa? I could hire a productivity expert at 1.2 million dollars and have things tight around here. Tell you what. If you tighten these numbers up in the next fiscal quarter, I will give you a 10% productivity bonus. That means ((2,400,000)/4)*10% = 60,000 in your pocket, if you can find a way to keep these fucking production line monkeys at their station for six more minutes per hour! Why can't you do that? I can walk out this door and find a thousand young executives waiting for a 60k$ salary with a 60k$ QUARTERLY BONUS. Do it or you are gone.


Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the fictional world of Middle Management. Any takers? 60k per year plus a potential 240k$ annual bonus? All you have to do is sell your soul and be willing to have 1,000 employees hate you.

Now the way I'm reading it, and knowing how tough a negotiater the UAW can be... It's 48 minutes of bathroom breaks-- that to me is bathroom only - that doesn't include regular breaks during the day or lunch breaks.

48 minutes to go to the can?

Ya gottabe eating a lot of Mexican food for that to happen!

If they're talking those 48 minutes are for bathroom breaks only - that seems crazy. I realize somebody with bladder control might have trouble but couldn't they get a Dr's order to allow them more breaks. Still, even if a person has to pee it should only take 5 minutes or so. I work from home and usually take less than 20 minutes or so in the bathroom for the whole day that the kids are here. Even if someone is having trouble going to the bathroom - they could look for a Dr to help them with that. To need that much time is not healthy - somethings wrong.

Still - regulate that? I've been some places where people got two 15 min breaks, one 30 min (punched out) break, and one 10 minute smoking break. My co-workers smoked but I did not. I would tell my boss when I needed my "smoking" break and she'd let me go relax in the breakroom, visit the bathroom, etc. Unless I was sick I didn't need any other breaks to use the bathroom.

Knowing the UAW - I think Mal's right. Those 48 minutes are for bathroom breaks ONLY.

So in Ben's fictional firm, subtract another (((2 * (15min * 1000 employees) + (30min * 1000)) / 60) * 12) dollars per day from your bottom line. Assuming that they don't recieve a 60-minute lunch.

Holy. Shit. And when I worked hourly, I never actually broke for my unpaid 30 minute lunch.

As someone who's worked an assembly line (albeit in fruit leather manufacturing, a bit different than auto manufacturing), I'll throw in my 2 cents. Those people need to realize they're there to do a job, not be babied by their union. We had no mandated potty breaks--we had to signal to the supervisor we needed to go and the supervisor had to take our spot on the line. Mind you, it was a much smaller company than Ford, but the idea of the assembly line is the same regardless. These people are spoiled.

Read the actual article. Management is not complaining about the workers taking "48 minutes in the bathroom." On average, they exceed the 48 minutes allowed by contract by about 6 minutes per day. The company thinks this is excessive. :rolleyes:


I think I agree, especially the part about "on average"!

Which in my fictional assembly line and wage rate would equal 2.4 million dollars.

Which is where the boss comes in and starts cracking the whip. You guys already get 48 minutes, could you please sort yourselves out?

I think that the workers probably resent the fact that they are being timed in the first place. What if everyone put the stopwatches down and started to build a happy and healthy workplace? CANT WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

I am not going to judge, lest someone come to my place of work with a stopwatch and time how long I spend surfing the TFP every day. :D :D.

In this situation, I find the quote appropriate. And no, I am not a religious man. I am a spiritual one.

Chrysler on bathrooms: Take your time

for some reason, the comment about bein anal -- while referring to bathroom breaks made me giggle...

Who cares if they don't like it they should quit and find another job. Ford and GM have already screwed themselves over with their pension plans, they are paying way too much to people that aren't working, so eventually they'll have to downsize and take a few of their car brands off the market, meaning less jobs, so complaining about petty shit like bathroom brakes now seems stupid, when it seems evident that Ford is trying to find ways to increase productivity so they don't have to eventually fire people and so they can turn a profit.