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Can I inquire how you recruited and what your minimum requirements were? It seems like you said something a highschool students could do but then you discuss m

Can I inquire how you recruited and what your minimum requirements were? It seems like you said something a highschool students could do but then you discuss masters degrees. I've personally found that a lot of employers still hire like it's 2009 during the great recession. Sometimes these days you have to be more creative. Like hire an additional manager at $80k and then hire workers at $40k and have that manager be more hands on. When an economy is expanding, it is statistically impossible to fill all positions with experienced workers because there are now more jobs than there were before but the same amount of experienced workers. The opposite is true during recession when the economy shrinks. In that case there are a surplus of experienced workers because the amount of jobs have reduced. Please don't take that as criticism, I just wanted to shed some insight into hiring based upon the rate of growth in an economy.

baybal2 8y ago
Yes, we surely tried the usual "worker demographic," but got people who can't distinguish volts from amperes and miswiring simplest assemblies even with the most detailed assembly instructions possible... Electronics assembly requires at least a high school level knowledge of things like physics for a person to just to have an idea what, and what for he is doing, and what each component does. It does not work as a "fully mechanistic process" where assemblers are treated as brainless robots. It requires cognitive skills, despite of high class "creative" people hating to admit that.
- dorchadas 8y ago
  > Electronics assembly requires at least a high school level knowledge of things like physics for a person to just to have an idea what, and what for he is doing, and what each component does. At least in the state where It each, that means they know nothing about physics. Literally, all that's required is an introductory course split between chemistry and physics. Time constraints means the second one usually gets thrown under the bus, and they barely talk about the laws of motion, let alone electricity. So, basically, these employees probably do have high school level knowledge of physics.
  - hoaw 8y ago
    I think what is really meant is science literacy. You need some sort of context to be able to understand the meaning of resistance, polarity, serial vs. parallel etc. It isn't that hard of course, but when there is maybe a hundred different things you can't purely memorize them all and expect to be efficient, especially not when things change. That said, basic physics in bloody useful as well. I was always a shitty student, but I am constantly surprised people can't even figure out that they need to use physics to know certain things. In contrast with things like economics, physics is actually quite forgiving for the layperson when it comes to casual discussions about e.g. transportation.
    - ethbro 8y ago
      It was stupid on my part, but I remember being surprised in an undergrad Physics I lab when our inclined plane motion experiment matched predicted results so accurately. I went to a decent high school with science labs, but most knowledge seemed so abstract. How often do you do accurate chemistry in everyday life? Classical mechanics, on the other hand, is most of life. Everything moves. And it felt pretty magical that suddenly I had math that could predict the future.
- sithadmin 8y ago
  If your manufacturing process requires your line workers to be making judgements that necessitate "distinguish[ing] volts from amperes", you have a fundamentally flawed manufacturing methodology that cannot and will not scale (as you apparently have seen firsthand).
  - baybal2 8y ago
    > If your manufacturing process requires your line workers to be making judgements that necessitate "distinguish[ing] volts from amperes", you have a fundamentally flawed manufacturing methodology This way of "thinking" is what has happened to manufacturing industry in the states. It works totally fine in factories staffed with thousands of "poorly educated" workers in China, but not in USA. Why?
    - creato 8y ago
      I'm going to guess it's because they have an engineer or two hands-on fixing and optimizing the process (not the individual assembly tasks) to avoid this problem. I doubt the workers themselves are that different anywhere in the world.
    - kokokokoko 8y ago
      If you take a look at my earlier comment you'll notice I mentioned adding additional managers which directly train and supervise the workers. China tends to have a much hire ratio of supervisors on the actual assembly room floor as opposed to in the office. In the west, many would consider it micromanaging. Not sure if would have made a difference in your case, but just wanted to mention it.
    - hoaw 8y ago
      Chinese workers aren't poorly educated as such, even if those still exist of course. Contrary to popular belief what make China succeed in manufacturing is ample supply of semi-skilled workers. A lot of Chinese factories aren't that sophisticated overall. In a smaller factories equipment might be domestic Chinese or second hand Japanese/Korean equipment. Every few days, or even multiple times an hour, the machines needs help or maintenance. A light will go red and a machine operator will come an poke it for a bit until it works again. Poking a machine a bit is like a revered hobby in the west, if not a $100k job. And you can barely buy a screw retail. All so the rich can get richer through rents.

baybal2 8y ago

Yes, we surely tried the usual "worker demographic," but got people who can't distinguish volts from amperes and miswiring simplest assemblies even with the most detailed assembly instructions possible... Electronics assembly requires at least a high school level knowledge of things like physics for a person to just to have an idea what, and what for he is doing, and what each component does. It does not work as a "fully mechanistic process" where assemblers are treated as brainless robots. It requires cognitive skills, despite of high class "creative" people hating to admit that.

dorchadas 8y ago
> Electronics assembly requires at least a high school level knowledge of things like physics for a person to just to have an idea what, and what for he is doing, and what each component does. At least in the state where It each, that means they know nothing about physics. Literally, all that's required is an introductory course split between chemistry and physics. Time constraints means the second one usually gets thrown under the bus, and they barely talk about the laws of motion, let alone electricity. So, basically, these employees probably do have high school level knowledge of physics.
- hoaw 8y ago
  I think what is really meant is science literacy. You need some sort of context to be able to understand the meaning of resistance, polarity, serial vs. parallel etc. It isn't that hard of course, but when there is maybe a hundred different things you can't purely memorize them all and expect to be efficient, especially not when things change. That said, basic physics in bloody useful as well. I was always a shitty student, but I am constantly surprised people can't even figure out that they need to use physics to know certain things. In contrast with things like economics, physics is actually quite forgiving for the layperson when it comes to casual discussions about e.g. transportation.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    It was stupid on my part, but I remember being surprised in an undergrad Physics I lab when our inclined plane motion experiment matched predicted results so accurately. I went to a decent high school with science labs, but most knowledge seemed so abstract. How often do you do accurate chemistry in everyday life? Classical mechanics, on the other hand, is most of life. Everything moves. And it felt pretty magical that suddenly I had math that could predict the future.
sithadmin 8y ago
If your manufacturing process requires your line workers to be making judgements that necessitate "distinguish[ing] volts from amperes", you have a fundamentally flawed manufacturing methodology that cannot and will not scale (as you apparently have seen firsthand).
- baybal2 8y ago
  > If your manufacturing process requires your line workers to be making judgements that necessitate "distinguish[ing] volts from amperes", you have a fundamentally flawed manufacturing methodology This way of "thinking" is what has happened to manufacturing industry in the states. It works totally fine in factories staffed with thousands of "poorly educated" workers in China, but not in USA. Why?
  - creato 8y ago
    I'm going to guess it's because they have an engineer or two hands-on fixing and optimizing the process (not the individual assembly tasks) to avoid this problem. I doubt the workers themselves are that different anywhere in the world.
  - kokokokoko 8y ago
    If you take a look at my earlier comment you'll notice I mentioned adding additional managers which directly train and supervise the workers. China tends to have a much hire ratio of supervisors on the actual assembly room floor as opposed to in the office. In the west, many would consider it micromanaging. Not sure if would have made a difference in your case, but just wanted to mention it.
  - hoaw 8y ago
    Chinese workers aren't poorly educated as such, even if those still exist of course. Contrary to popular belief what make China succeed in manufacturing is ample supply of semi-skilled workers. A lot of Chinese factories aren't that sophisticated overall. In a smaller factories equipment might be domestic Chinese or second hand Japanese/Korean equipment. Every few days, or even multiple times an hour, the machines needs help or maintenance. A light will go red and a machine operator will come an poke it for a bit until it works again. Poking a machine a bit is like a revered hobby in the west, if not a $100k job. And you can barely buy a screw retail. All so the rich can get richer through rents.