craftsman never blame their tools

This morning we had a training day. I am very pleased with the results. We focused on the three tool centers in the shop. If you can imagine, the tools of our shop have a natural entropy, and believe me it is not organized. We have many tools to get our work done thousands of little different tools needing to be used at different times. We need to be able to locate these tools quickly and when we need them. So I have made three pairs of tool boxes. Each pair is located strategically and has the exact same configuration. Everything that a craftsman needs is in each pair. It is a pretty good system until you need something that is not in one of those boxes. For example Gagan asked me this week for a hack saw. I know I have several hack saws, but they are not in the tool box, just doesn't come up. We had to search for it. So today was spent going over the contents of the tools and their respective locations in the boxes. We had to make some modifications to two other boxes so they are similar and then we matched up all the tools. I still need to buy two more large routers and two more trim routers with their respective bit sets, for the pairs to be identical. Most of my back-up tooling is out on the floor now. I'll have to re-up soon. HD Chasen out of somerville is where I do most of my wheelin and dealing tool wise. They have everything imaginable and most of it is in stock. The owner was nice enough to come over to my shop and make a tool list with me listing all the tools and their order numbers. I can easily monitor what tools we are using most and are re-ordering, and that way I can add that expense to the job cost. New tooling is something that we will always need, I want to know that we have budgeted a certain amount of money constantly to new tooling. The staff then knows that new tools are always coming. that is important to craftsman, having good tools. It is said that a craftsman never blames his tools for shotty work, and I agree with that, but man let me tell you that it is easier to do good work with good tools. And well organized tools that you are familiar with. Sondu came in today for the event and helped out that was really nice. Sondu actually had some good ideas about tool location in the boxes and also the idea of adding a location for bungs. You are the idea man around hear sondu and we do miss you. The whole event took about 2 hours and was worth every cent of our time. I'm so proud that we as a team are taking the time for the kaizen events and the training days. I know it's hard to see the improvement now because it's early wait a few years from now at how are operation will perform and you'll see the progress as plain as day.

the training continues or apprende conseguir

Sondu I've thought about the kaizen event as you've read and it is circular. this is what I picture. Engineering does everything, they spec out the face frame, they spec out the box dimensions. the only difference that unit 4 will have is that it won't be assembled until the face frame is built so we can perfectly align the sides of the cabinet with the side of the face frame. Certain parts can be described by the engineering to be cut with overages allowed to be trimmed at final assembly. I know you've said that it puts a lot of pressure on engineering. And I respect that opinion. I also think that that is the purpose of engineering, the head scratching of everybody. we should consider our next kaizen event being on how we present this info to the team. A standard format of the shop drawings. Feel free to chime in Sondu if you have any relative thoughts.


As far as our training day this week coming up. I'm planning on doing a classroom session. The topic ill be the three tool box sets that we and how they are designed and the contents of which have a specific intent. I'm hoping to get some plotter size drawings completed for props.

I almost forgot, today I had the pleasure of stopping into one my favorite place to do business. Boulter Plywood. The buys at boulter plywood in Somerville are always happy to see you no matter who you are. There is always an air of telling jokes. They always eager to serve and help you find what they need. I don't pretend to do marketing for them but they have just about every kind of plywood you could think of, and hence have a pretty big nation sales. I typically buy whole sale plywood and lumber. But when I started out I had to shop their place all the time. I made some great relationships. I go their now for random one plywood sheets, also for hardwood. They are the only supplier locally of hardwood timber, it's all dressed mind you so no good to me(we like to dress our own wood). But when I've forgotten to get that piece of 8/4 at my usual spot I know that boulter will have in their well organized basement. Which happened yesterday and today I was getting dressed piece of 8/4 poplar. Boulter is sure to get many amention here on this blog, those gave have funny stories about me.