Joined:
November 2005
Posts: 1126
Location: Omaha, NE | This has got to have been the most intenst week in a long time!
We just got a new digital printer installed at my plant. Konica-Minolta BizHub C500. Big SOB. Really runs great. We use it to print oversize inserts to go into the binders we make.
So, on Tuesday, I have my office manager in with me and I was commenting on how well things were running. The new printer is a huge productivity gain, and our new production manager is really getting things going. We also have a new guy in the silk screen department with 30 years of experience, so our screening is getting better than ever also.
Not ten minutes later, my production manager comes in. He has this "someone just died" look on his face and says I need to come out into the plant. Good news is no one died. Bad news is our big paper cutter broke. If you've never seen a commercial paper cutter, these things are pretty serious. The one in question was a 42", meaning it could slice through a 6" tall stack of paper, 42" wide. It weighs about 10k pounds. Anyway, a big casting had cracked and broken apart. Bad. So, we send everyone home (nothing happens without the cutter), pull the broken part out and take it to a welder.
The next morning, we get it put back together. I know it won't hold for long, so I get on the phone and start working on buying a new machine. At least it held until the next morning, which is when it broke again. This is wednesday. Damn. No point in welding it again. So, we spend the next two days shuttling our material over to a commercial printer that is owned by a friend and cutting our stuff down over there. Major PITA.
I get lucky and find a cutter in Chicago that is already palletized up and ready to ship. I get that on the way to Omaha, but not without a number of fits and starts (no point in going through everything here).
So, just when I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, my silk screen guy comes with that same "someone died" look. This time it is our ultraviolet curing unit. This thing draws 200 amps continuously, and generates intense ultraviolet light to cure the silk screen ink on our binders. By now it is friday, and this is BAD. We have multiple orders that have to ship ASAP, and without the curing unit, we are dead. So, I get with the manufacturer, and have a bunch of spare parts sent for FedEx saturday delivery.
Late friday afternoon the new cutter comes in. WOW. We went from a 42" to a 47", and it shows. The new one is really big. The rigger figured around 11k pounds. Amazing how they can pick those things up with their big forklifts.
So, by saturday afternoon, we have the new cutter wired up, we have the curing unit restored, and we brought in a crew and got some binders finished that had to get delivered that day. Whew.
Then, the leader of my Sunday ensemble called and said that I was going to be solo this sunday. That actually worked out really well. It was the first time ever that it was just me and my family. We just got back from church, and I am still riding the glow. That was FUN! It was me on guitar and singing, three of my daughters singing, and my wife on flute. We had the best time we have had in years. And judging from the applause at the end, we must have sounded reasonably good as well.
For a week that had its ups and downs, it really ended on a big UP. |
What a week (Long)!
