Let's rewrite all software to use Andon instead if exception
Start with writing software that has https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke in mind
Andon (manufacturing)
11–20 of 35 posts
Re: Andon (manufacturing)
#12Trader Joe's cashier bells have entered the chat. Ironically, the "request assistance" button and accompanying blinking light on top of your stand at self-checkout are the "self-managing" version of that where you as the customer are partly an employee. oh well
I was at a Safeway last month, and I asked the overseer guy what the lamps meant on top of the self-check machines, and he said he honestly didn’t know.
Re: Andon (manufacturing)
#13As a kid I used to substitute in an injection molding plant. We worked for four hours, pause, four hours. The plant ran three shifts, 7 days a week.
I worked in a big hall with two rows of molding machines. Each one had a pole with a yellow beacon light at the top.
The machines had fixed cycle times and the operator had to repeat the same steps every cycle. For example on one machine I had to put four small metal cylinders into the mould, close the door, wait, open the door and remove the finished parts. Cycle time was only a couple of seconds usually, with the shortest one I remember being 8 seconds. If you were too slow the machine stopped and the yellow light went on.
You also could stop the machine on purpose. There was a field with 3 by 6 buttons or something with different stopping reasons, toilet break being one of them.
So far, this probably doesn't sound too bad, but to complete picture you have to know two things:
1. Every restart meant throwing away the first one or two minutes of production
2. Foreman had to keep a quota.
That meant, yellow light, foreman came and shouted at you. The buttons were never used. You spent four hours straight doing the same routine every couple of seconds without skipping a beat.
Whenver I think my job is bad I remember that time and I'm glad for what I have.
Re: Andon (manufacturing)
#14In theory a good escalation system. In practice there must be strong guarantees and trust that there are no repercussions for triggering. Otherwise management will tell you over and over to "pull the andon cord / escalate earle & often" but really no one does.
Not only must there be trust, but there must also be a resolve to make deeper fixes to problems surfaced through the andon system. It's a typical mistake to forget that part. If the response to a problem is patching over the immediate symptom, then the cord will keep being pulled for the same reasons so often no work will end up getting done. Then the andon system is abandoned as "didn't work for our organisation". W…
It's not just resolve, either. The org must recognize the problem in the first place, which isn't a given. Especially in smaller/govt orgs. Often, recognition of the problem is wrongly tied to how difficult the foremost suggestion is to implement.
And there are orgs for whom any suggestion can itself be so encumbered by uncontrolled red tape and social costs that relatively minor changes become a project.
Re: Andon (manufacturing)
#15As a kid I used to substitute in an injection molding plant. We worked for four hours, pause, four hours. The plant ran three shifts, 7 days a week. I worked in a big hall with two rows of molding machines. Each one had a pole with a yellow beacon light at the top. The machines had fixed cycle times and the operator had to repeat the same steps every cycle. For example on one machine I had to put four small metal cyl…
> Whenver I think my job is bad I remember that time and I'm glad for what I have.
I generally suspect folks would be a lot happier if they'd had a few more crap jobs as a baseline!
I think my lowest point was vacuum packing smoked salmon. It wasn't dissimilar in some ways (repeat simple task endlessly), but the real crux was the absolute inability to evade the smell. It came home with you and lingered hard. The greasy aroma of kitchen fryers had nothing on this.
Re: Andon (manufacturing)
#16As a kid I used to substitute in an injection molding plant. We worked for four hours, pause, four hours. The plant ran three shifts, 7 days a week. I worked in a big hall with two rows of molding machines. Each one had a pole with a yellow beacon light at the top. The machines had fixed cycle times and the operator had to repeat the same steps every cycle. For example on one machine I had to put four small metal cyl…
> Whenver I think my job is bad I remember that time and I'm glad for what I have. I generally suspect folks would be a lot happier if they'd had a few more crap jobs as a baseline! I think my lowest point was vacuum packing smoked salmon. It wasn't dissimilar in some ways (repeat simple task endlessly), but the real crux was the absolute inability to evade the smell. It came home with you and lingered hard. The grea…
Yep.
* Unloading fish on a wharf during a violent snowstorm, at night.
* Doing the stop/go signs on roadworks for 12 hours in the rain.
* Carrying heavy boxes of government records up 5 flights of stairs from a basement for eight hours, and the next day, carrying them up 2 flights of stairs to their new home - blew out the medial meniscus in my right knee doing that
* Carrying what Americans call drywall, but like the kind with noise deadening material in it that makes it heavier, non-stop for three weeks during the construction of an art gallery. Ever had that thing where your body just says "no" because you've been pushing your muscles too hard and your fingers go nerveless and involuntarily release? I got a written warning for that because I dropped the expensive drywall. Only kind of drywall that was worse was the drywall used to line X-ray rooms in medical centres.
* Working the recycling trucks - the bins we emptied into the sorting tray had drainage holes in the bottom, and you had to lift them above your head to tip them into the sorting tray, so when you did, a lovely mixture of coagulating milk / wine / beer / whatever other fluids came from unclean recycling would run down your arm and until I learned to tape up the cuffs of my overalls, inside your overalls. And when we went to offload, rubbish dump dust would stick to your sweat / recycling juice, so every day ended up stinking and filthy.
* Kitchenhand in an airport kitchen so poorly managed I was the longest serving dishpig they'd ever had when I stayed there six months. I outlasted about 8 cooks, I suppose they had options.
* Case worker in social security - understaffed, pressured to achieve unrealistic numbers, and often directed by policy to not help people who needed help.
* Oh, and roguing for wild oats in wheat fields in near 100°F heat.
Those jobs really help me appreciate how privileged and lucky I am to be a developer.
Re: Andon (manufacturing)
#17As a kid I used to substitute in an injection molding plant. We worked for four hours, pause, four hours. The plant ran three shifts, 7 days a week. I worked in a big hall with two rows of molding machines. Each one had a pole with a yellow beacon light at the top. The machines had fixed cycle times and the operator had to repeat the same steps every cycle. For example on one machine I had to put four small metal cyl…
> Whenver I think my job is bad I remember that time and I'm glad for what I have. I generally suspect folks would be a lot happier if they'd had a few more crap jobs as a baseline! I think my lowest point was vacuum packing smoked salmon. It wasn't dissimilar in some ways (repeat simple task endlessly), but the real crux was the absolute inability to evade the smell. It came home with you and lingered hard. The grea…
> I generally suspect folks would be a lot happier if they'd had a few more crap jobs as a baseline!
Fully agree. I cleaned a potato processing plant at night. They had to stop production for a few hours so there was huge time pressure. Crawling under machines to drain waste water tanks (onto yourself as the plug was of course on the bottom), slippery potato-mash everywhere, reaching into and almost running over all kinds of machines and conveyor belts.
All while wearing a rubber suit in the heat of warm water pressure washers and the smell of industrial cleaning agents.
So yes, I'll happily take that 15 minute useless "strategy meeting" with you.
Re: Andon (manufacturing)
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Whenver I think my job is bad I remember that time and I'm glad for what I have. I generally suspect folks would be a lot happier if they'd had a few more crap jobs as a baseline! I think my lowest point was vacuum packing smoked salmon. It wasn't dissimilar in some ways (repeat simple task endlessly), but the real crux was the absolute inability to evade the smell. It came home with you and lingered hard. The grea…
Yep. * Unloading fish on a wharf during a violent snowstorm, at night. * Doing the stop/go signs on roadworks for 12 hours in the rain. * Carrying heavy boxes of government records up 5 flights of stairs from a basement for eight hours, and the next day, carrying them up 2 flights of stairs to their new home - blew out the medial meniscus in my right knee doing that * Carrying what Americans call drywall, but like th…
I've done some odd jobs too; worked in an assembly plant for toilet freshener plastic things, most of the time was spent making sure the components were supplied to the machines and their workers and collecting, weighing, spot checking, stacking and wrapping the finished product boxes on pallets, but for a few weeks I was at one of the machines, putting a little foam insert rough-side-up on a plastic frame. Two hours on end, break, two hours, lunch, etc. It was earbuds in, brain off, blink, day finished, part of me misses it.
Other jobs were harvesting lettuce (on your knees with a knife behind a conveyor, my knees were fooked after a few days), building scaffolding in 30+ degree weather (lasted two weeks I think?), working at a DIY store (restocking, mixing paint, cleaning, it was a decent job, I was there for over a year working part-time), delivering newspapers, etc.
Re: Andon (manufacturing)
#19In theory a good escalation system. In practice there must be strong guarantees and trust that there are no repercussions for triggering. Otherwise management will tell you over and over to "pull the andon cord / escalate earle & often" but really no one does.
Not only must there be trust, but there must also be a resolve to make deeper fixes to problems surfaced through the andon system. It's a typical mistake to forget that part. If the response to a problem is patching over the immediate symptom, then the cord will keep being pulled for the same reasons so often no work will end up getting done. Then the andon system is abandoned as "didn't work for our organisation". W…
It only works well in a "no blame" culture - just like software development should be. Sure, one person can really mess up, but there should be systems and processes in place that prevent that from happening or becoming a major issue. This includes limiting access to production, code reviews, CI, etc.
It feels like these best practices are often forgotten or skipped by people who just want to feel productive (be it through writing their own code or using AI). Which is fine to a point - for personal projects.
Re: Andon (manufacturing)
#20[flagged]