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The case of the perforated package

. “My suckers don’t suck,” Jimmy told me over the phone. “I need some help.” Some things don’t suck; others do. This was clearly a case of the former, and I was on my way to see Jimmy’s problem. When I got to the plant, he showed me his case erector. An arm with two vacuum cups pulled the case blank out of the magazine across the breaker... More

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The case of the spotty slacks

. I was at Jan’s plant helping out with some OEE (overall equipment efficiency) issues on the packaging line. Everyone had been friendly all week, but now as I walked to the cafeteria I noticed some of the teammates looking at me funny and laughing behind their hands. “What’s up,” I asked Jan. “Why the funny looks?” “Look at your... More

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The case of the unstable label

“My labels are wandering,” said Kelley. “Well, that’s no good; they need to stay at home where you can keep an eye on them,” I quipped. Kelley didn’t appreciate the humor but asked me to come take a look. The labeler detected the gap between labels with a photo eye to position the label at the edge of the peeler plate. This label was transparent,... More

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The case of the short ceiling

Gerry’s message was garbled. All I could make out was “legs … cut … off. Get here fast.” From the message, I was not sure whether I was going to a packaging line or a crime scene. When I got to the plant Gerry took me to the aseptic clean room (Class 100, laminar flow ceiling). There was a new bottle orienter, lying on its side because it was too tall to... More

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The case of the sloppy spec

 . “Speed is only a question of money. How fast do you want to go?” This is as true on a packaging line as it was in the movie Mad Max. Bobbie was qualifying a new cartoner. He had purchased an inkjet printer for coding and the code quality was horrible so he called me in. I watched them try to run. The ink dots were spread out to the point of illegibility.... More