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« on: February 05, 2022, 11:32:06 PM »
I remember when someone from industrial engineering would go out into the assembly plant with a stop watch and do a time study on an operation. When I was at Van Nuys, you basically had about a minute to perform your operation and most of the work was not easy. The plant was also not air conditioned and it would get really hot in the summer, especially on the second floor where we used water-based paint.
I left GM and went to McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach, CA. I had to submit the Program Cost Estimate to the Air Force for the C-17, which was based on actuals, standards, realization factors, out-of-position work, etc. I had an spreadsheet which had inputs for touch labor and sustaining effort and would have to manual change the lot break points, based on requests from the Air Force for future production lot buy scenarios. I got really good changing learning curves and doing parametric estimates as during the early days of the C-17, there was a concern about unit cost, mostly due to budget constraints. I don't believe we ever produced more than 16 C-17s in any production lot, even though the assembly plant, Bldg. 54, was designed to produce over 24 planes. I laugh when I hear what a great the C-17 is as when I was on the Lot 4, 5, and 6 negotiation team, we were always being told the program was going to be cancelled!
I have to admit I liked working more at GM. When I visited the plant at Bowling Green, they didn't stop the line when changing shifts as the assembly line moved so slowly that it wasn't necessary!
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