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Advantages of 24 hr. 7 day work shifts in Powder Coating?

I have been assigned a project to investigate shift work in various types of manufacturing. My specific interest is in seeing how many manufacturers of powder coatings and applicators work on seven day 24 hr schedules and what if any advantages and disadvantages from a productivity and human resource side are associated with this type of production schedule. I would appreciate any information or sources of data you could refer me to.

Thank you,

David Brown MA. Adult Ed.
- Montreal, Quebec, Canada
2002

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April 29, 2009

Hi, David. Speaking for myself, I have never seen a 24-hour 7-day schedule in an independent metal finishing jobshop. I have seen 24-hour 5-day schedules in some plating and anodizing jobshops in the past, but anything beyond 2-shifts is rather unusual today.

The driving force behind multiple shifts is that there is startup and shutdown time in any manufacturing process, and if you can minimize this wasted effort, you have a more efficient process. For example, it takes a couple of hours to do the finish on a part in many operations; if you run only one shift, you can't package parts for 2 hours so you get 6 hours production for 8 hours work, 14 hours production for 16 hours work, or 24 hours production for 24 hours work.

I doubt that anyone would run a 24-hour 7-day powder coating operation unless it was part of a vertically integrated OEM which was running that schedule.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey