How your shop looks makes all the difference

When was the last time you looked at your shop? I know: You look at it every day. It seems fine, right? Maybe not.

I’ve been recommending and purchasing capital equipment for about 20 years. What amazes me is that once machines are purchased, installed and running, in many cases they look 10 years old within the first year. Operators don’t bother to wipe down machines at the end of their shifts. Employees don’t wipe up coolant or oil spills. What about hosing down the interior work area? Don’t tell me that these same machines have a decent preventive maintenance program. If they look like hell on the outside, you can probably rest assured they’re as bad on the inside.

I’ve been fortunate to travel to many shops and manufacturing facilities of various sizes across the U.S. and Canada and overseas. The company where I started out decades ago was the filthiest place I have ever worked. After three months, I couldn’t take it anymore and left, vowing never to work in manufacturing again. Oh, well, never say never.

I’ve worked at and visited machine shops that machined industrial plastics, including graphite. At some of these shops, I couldn’t tell they machined graphite, because their dust collection was awesome. At others, as soon as I walked past a machine that cut graphite, I would blow my nose and black particulates would come out. I knew that this was coming because everything had a coating of black dust. I didn’t want to touch anything, but the employees and management were not concerned.