Chapter 5: What are the strategies?

Obviously, the objective was not to create anxious moments in the recycling center and turned things ugly.

Another way out

Having a cup of hot coffee was the greatest pleasure for me before starting another busy day. The atmosphere at Level-5 office was forever calm and unprecedented quiet in the morning. Not until the hasty announcement broadcasting all over the factory broke the silence and scuffed the fresh morning air. I hated paying attention to that loud, rough and husky voice coming out of the office’s amplifier when I was enjoying my first sip of the day.

It was neither a fire drill nor an urgent call from Production floor. Turned out, within 5 or 10 minutes, the Quarterly worldwide meeting would commence and live broadcast from the US headquarter in California.

Most of the Salaried Exempted (SE) staffs were turned up at the office earlier than usual. Talking about the number of SE staff the company hired if the whole lot arrayed along the DP highway they probably spanned few kilometers and clogged the entire passage.

Every SE wanted to show up on scene especially in the presence of the VIPs. Already the HR had given an earlier notice a week ago, announcing that Mr CEO would announce the company’s long term business expansion plan and soon recognize prospective business units in Asia, so the attendance was kind of compulsory.

Nothing exceptional, the agenda usually started with an Irish accent speech which the contents were usually numbers and the competitors’ name along with slides showing charts and tables. Having no particular details of the subject being said, the related object, and how the object being complemented in this classic marketing pitch, the meeting adjourned.

After several experiences sitting in a crowded basement chamber for nearly two hours of meeting, if you were a typical engineer, you were probably wondering what the hell all of these marketing presentations like Quarterly worldwide meetings were useful for. The only insightful information interested me was, the year-end bonus or incentive a SE entitled.

Many SE staffs, often those who were not enthusiastic daily 10.30 Production Meeting, seemed to feel much relief if they could avoid another hearing in which they have to answer production shortfalls. Even the General Manager, the 10.30 Meeting chairman, was extremely excited to meet other leaders from international watching the Mr CEO announced latest quarterly financial report and business future prospects.

Then, the QCs would miss the only slot of that week presenting the audit findings, of which usually pointing the production folks and engineering departments for violating the Quality standards. None of these departments’ boss could tolerate that in an open forum like 10.30 Meeting. For them, the QC simply publicized other’s private grievances and spread ill feeling amongst large audiences, caused their department performance looked terrible.

Who would have thought that deliberately sharing pieces of quality thought about technology deficits could have some deep psychological effects for the action owners and their bosses? It was a work-related issue, nothing personal for QC drama. Their intelligence and common sense must allow them to make a practical justification.

Almost half of a day passed the worldwide live broadcast finally ended. The second half of the day would be unfeasible for the CRISIS team members to focus on issues outside their own department.

Having 4 high-tech machines downed and some tens of thousands of parts stacking on the production floor, there were no time to waste for the CRISIS team and the management. I had to approach each CRISIS team members’ manager to grant permission for their subordinate to carry on the meeting. Quite often, the answer was a negative one. Even if, some departments agreed to give in labors, the participating persons were usually the amateurs, not the specialized CRISIS team members.

Yet, I would figure out other possible to move on rather than let the problem wreaking inferior quality on finished products.

Key members such as Mr SS, Mr PS, Mr MM, Mr ZZ and Mr DD must come in and take an active role during discussion for a meaningful meeting. Getting to the bottom line was easy, but embracing a responsive atmosphere for open discussion during the meeting was difficult.

Some members have a mind set for time factor, and some were impatience listening to others. The truth was, some autocratic figures, especially those in the managerial position, wanted their opinion to be heard at all times without consulting others. Mr SS’s contribution although crucial to the decision making, his attendance habitually forcing the brainstorming session yielded slack decisions and ended in a hurry. Let bygone be a bygone, was the fact, we had been accepting.

The devil makes work for idle hands

Many speculations about adverse consequences voiced if the cleaning operation had stopped such as the business gone amiss. The Compound room facilities were our concern for a green manufacturing solution. But that would have to be proven by a comprehensive study in the Compound room and its surrounding areas while the EHS department performing environment re-assessment.

The Compound room air flow was studied and traced as well as its adjacent room air flow. In order for us to study how the airways were connected and linked, we decided to seal the whole machine as possible, and barricade the compartment for high-tech machine so that it were isolated from neighboring areas. Ultimately, we believed that the actions would quarantine the problem to a smaller area to control and maintain.

For the first time in my memory, the majority of the crisis team and the management joined me in believing that environment control must be giving priority. The results revealed that part of the recycling processes the post-high-tech cleaning was under controlled provided all precaution steps were strictly followed.

However, the initial study did not consider the worst scenario, when the machine was not sealed and run full swing in a prolonged period. Furthermore, the room pressure at some critical locations, which could be a crucial piece of evidences indicating positive air flow from clean room to the Compound room, were not measured. If it turned out the air flow were in the reverse direction, the clean room must be contaminated.

If we had the EHS reports or cause effect analysis, we could quantify the severity of the problem. But no one had accurately simulated the cause and the effects until then, and the EHS reports released to us much later.

Considering the problem would take a long time to solve, an alternative method must be in place of the high-tech machine. We tried to integrate a Vacuum-Suction method to remove loose metallic particles from the parts because this method produced a better contaminants migration concept than available system.

Meanwhile, our counterpart in Thailand had started to use the Cleaning tape to remove debris and dust from the part’s surface along with their high-tech cleaning, and had reported the alternative yielded satisfactory results. But the procedure was put off due to uncertainties in the new material or vendor approval.

Though we continued to be more aggressive on improving the cleaning mechanism such as concealed the machine, and enforced workers to wear a face mask at work as the mandatory safety measure.

The actions took a little bit longer to take effect than it apparently urgency, merely because some management staff wanted it to implement that way, without hasten, as if it were purely another extra safety measure.

Obviously, the objective was not to create anxious moments in the recycling center and turned things ugly. After all, no one had so far showed any signs of illness or made any complaints as the result of repeat expose to that environment. Slowly, the recycling center would recuperate from the high-tech cleaning crisis, as the CRISIS team was planning to give the machine a new face.

The high-tech’s new clothes.

The first design of specific local exhaust system was scheduled to install on the high-tech machine, and the first draft was under amendment followed the US technical expert, Mr DS. He rejected initial design due to the fact that it needed better control of contaminants migration.

The disposable filters would be installed on the machine to collect metallic particles, and the exhaust fans and the vertical shafts would be installed at both side of the machine along with the pump for air and gases to venting through the ducting. Then through floor ventilation system, the returned-air were be filtered and grilled back to the production floor.

To put it briefly, Mr DS opinion committed logical flaws. There were some fundamental thoughts to fulfill before the new design could be practically applied.

An expert in the ventilation system and building air quality cited three strategies for achieving acceptable indoor air quality were ventilation, source control and cleaning or filtration. Because the indoor contaminants, CO2 and metallic particles, were harmful, the exhaust system must connect to the outside directly to ensure acceptable air quality. This would allow supplying outdoor air to the Compound room and removing stale air from this space.

Powerful contamination namely metallic particles were present in that area, therefore, a right ventilation rate to dilute the contaminants must make available in the system. The exhaust fans must possess certain capacity to convey the ventilating air. Their design and model were all depend on the air samples sampled from the entire system, but these data were almost impossible to obtain.

The temperature differences between the interior and exterior of the machine produced distinct variation in pressure across the floor envelope, as the result of differences in the density of the air caused by air sprays. The new design did not cater for the maximum influent of these stack-effects. Pressure differences were observed between the unloading bay and machine (cleaning process), and between machine and loading bay. The air sprays (wind) and freezing CO2 gases (temperature) could significantly affect the ventilation air movement.

If the exhaust system, as suggested by Mr DS, worked with pumps, it would generate vibrations and noises; that violated the clean room standard.

Air tightness was poor for this machine, and air leaks were common. Leaky system is more difficult to ventilate properly than relatively airtight system. However, making the system as airtight as possible means no openings for the loading work and the unloading work; that was unfeasible for this system.

On the path to further integrating this high-tech machine into the already complicated recycling process, the CRISIS team almost blind-folded by this hollow design. Somewhat, the new design had been deriving the concept of its biology analogy resembling human’s organs. Hence, based on what ground? That new clothes not only looked horrible but were another design failure.

Wai Ping Lee/May 2011