Like many growing manufacturers, we’re always on the lookout to hire good people willing to work. But we’re finding it more and more difficult to find good people even willing to show up. And we’re hearing similar reports from our metalworking, material handling and packaging colleagues all over the country.
According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the latest data shows 8.5 million job openings in the U.S. but only 6.5 million unemployed workers. The math points to a labor shortage and the demographics suggest it’s here for the long term so for those of us in metal fabrication, laser cutting, machinery manufacturing, and other industrial positions, we need to figure out how to adjust our workflows to be more productive with less staff.
And rather than complain about the lack of staff or the available pool of talent, let’s focus our attention – and gratitude – on the dedicated workers who do show up and still get the job done even when short staffed.
How can we make their jobs easier to prevent burnout and retain these prized people without sacrificing productivity or missing delivery deadlines?
Automation Compensates for Labor Shortage
Automation typically enables workers to get more work done faster and safer than with manual methods. With less workers available, many manufacturers turned to automation just to keep up with existing levels of business. At City Pipe & Supply, Odessa, Texas, for example, Charlie Justice and his team were struggling to keep up in the packaging department and had to pay overtime to stretch wrap 80 pallet loads of metal pipe per day by hand. By automating the stretch wrapping process with a TAB Wrapper Tornado orbital wrapper, they’re now stretch wrapping 80 pallet loads by lunchtime – 150 per day – and with only one worker instead of two.
Nearly double the production with half staff – not bad! Increasing production gets the headlines but the extra boost in efficiency comes from reassigning the second worker to other tasks. For example, take a look at what Steve Lewis did at Oregon Powder Coating, Tangent, Oregon. He needed to assign a two- to three-person crew to handle pallet wrapping by hand. Since cutting it down to a one-person job with the TAB Wrapper Tornado, the other workers have been freed to manage other tasks such as part production, quality assurance inspections, and even paperwork.
Misallocation of Human Resources
At a time when getting good people to work has become a challenge, can we really afford to deploy three perfectly capable workers to a dirty job like manual pallet wrapping that no one likes to do and often causes cuts and injuries? In some cases, fully trained machine operators, welders, and laser cutter programmers are being diverted from their real jobs to apply stretch wrap around pallet loads of metal parts. This misallocation of resources compromises productivity. What’s the point of investing in automated laser cutting and CNC machining equipment if the machines are left idle while the operators are working on stretch wrapping pallets for delivery?
There’s a better way to clear a bottleneck in the packaging and shipping department.
One Person Packaging Department
Instead of assigning two or three of your best workers to a physically demanding job that often feels like punishment, take a look at automating it with the TAB Wrapper Tornado. One worker can manage the entire stretch wrapping process from the seat of a forklift with a wireless remote control. Wrap pallets in 30 seconds or less. Every one of our customers we’ve asked has said the workers love it, they show up happy to work, and they would never want to go back to wrapping by hand.
Your TAB Wrapper Tornado may not appear in the employee benefits handbook, but for the people who use it every day, the benefits are as real and quantifiable as the ROI.
To quantify your ROI with a TAB Wrapper Tornado, use our Pallet Wrapping ROI Calculator here. Or contact sales@tabwrapper.com or 610-921-0012.