Comment on TSMC Arizona struggles to overcome vast differences between Taiwanese and US work culture
b3an@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
It doesn’t mean that the US factory is any less capable. What needs reworking is meeting the expectation and planning for contingencies. There should be ongoing shifts, specialized teams, rotation, mitigation, etc. I think our output is comparable but it’s done more safely and sustainable over a longer time VS grinding workers to dust and replacing them.
leisesprecher@feddit.org 5 weeks ago
It’s not about capabilities, it’s about cost.
If you can exploit your workers, pay shit wages for long hours, you’ll get a cheaper product. You can get the same output by applying higher standards, but that would mean hiring more people.
Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
The more time i spend in manufacturing environments ( I spend all my time there) the less i see actual product being the finished good. Business are setting themselves up for this autopilot pipe dream of “AI gonna fix everything” marketing/engineering utopia and in reality all it’s doing is dividing your operations crew and management. They are neglecting equipment, default mode of compliance is Bob y compliance because of awful processes and quality cutbacks (staffing staffing staffing).
leisesprecher@feddit.org 5 weeks ago
That’s the nature of capitalism.
Look at healthcare, software, construction. Unless there’s a very clear incentive to produce high quality (laws or enforceable contracts) things will go lower and lower in quality.
And unfortunately, a lot of consumers don’t care all that much about quality. They want crap that looks fancy.
Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
This last job (I’m a contract employee) will be my last in MFG. I was hired long term (2 years) to get a gsk/haleon site to add almost 40% more deliverables. 280 million units a year to 400 million. Reduce waste by 25%, CoA/CoE turn around down to 2 weeks from 6.
The labs, which operate almost entirely as a community (eg no real rigid structure, lots of senior empires) killed it. 7 day turn around which honestly now my mind. Packaging was a struggle once i pointed out that OEE can be improved by scheduling downtime rather than just oopsing it (strictly beancounter bullshit).
Manufacturing… Took my ideas, literally threw them in the trash in front of me and said they have experts from multiple countries, they don’t need my help. Cool, i still get paid so whatever. You wanna see the biggest dumpster fire ever… Laid off about 40% of the mfg work force, rolled out some bullshit trainings about operators and maintenance working to bring equipment “back to new” whatever the duck that means (means maintenance budget is gone) all while investing 0 dollars into repair and maintenance. Gear boxes leaking oil into overflowing catch cans for months. Vacuum traps actually pulling ingredients out of the batches, building more systems upon systems that they can’t validate. Cleans that won’t pass swabs, cleans that aren’t validated, processes that rely 100% on operators to transcribe SCADA data into an electronic batch record system.
Never seen anything like it but i know when a horse is dead and this one was dead before i got there.
roguetrick@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
It’s the nature of both market economies and planned economies. Strong unions are needed in both.