Equipment turnover in a manufacturing environment

[Cliptin]

It has been policy around here that when a printer out on the shop fails it should be replaced with a printer from the office area that is well used and then install a new printer into the office area. All printers are laser printers and need to understand PCL codes and are networked.

On the one hand, it is tough to justify placing a new expensive printer on the shop floor as the manufacturing environment is considerably more dusty and generally harder on equipment.

On the other hand, this seems like a bad idea to me simply because of the duplication of work and potential inconvenience to the office workers. Not to meantion placing the older printer on the shop floor will hasten its death just the same as a new printer.

Can anyone give me solid logical & economic justification one way or the other on this issue or at least some place to start? This trickle down method also applies to computers around here.

 

[P5-133XL]

The thing that you are doing wrong is PCL - Use Postscript printers. With PCL each printer has a different driver and thus the inconvience to the office workers. With Postscript, the printer can change and the driver does not need to, unless you are using a specific Printer option like duplexing.

The other thing that may help is to invest in a printer enclosure for the shop. The point is to diminish the effect of the enviornment on the printer.

It seems reasonable to use the trickle-down policy for the shop. Replacing the shop printer with new simply means that you will lose more value when it fails because it is newer.

How about replacing the shop printer with a refurbished or used unit (Ebay?). Thus you will lose less value when it dies its premature death. This is effectively what you are doing by the current policy, but, since you aren't replacing the office printer, you don't have the network driver instalation overhead.

 

[blakerwry]

If the two places (the office and the shop) needs were signifigantly different someone could easily justify purchasing seperate items for the office and shop independantly.

However, if you guys both have the same needs, but the office requires equipment to look nicer... be faster ... or have more reliability/availability in their equipment then I'd say you are doing a good job at being frugal and saving a few bucks.



What kind of inconvenience do the office workers see when you replace a printer? is it transparent or are there noticeable changes that the workers have to adjust for?

How would the shop benefit by getting new equipment... esp when you consider that the quipment will have a shorter life span in the harsher environment?

 

[mubs]

Considering that :
* new equipment is usually: faster, has higher resolution, is smaller and quieter
* office staff tend to print more
* factory staff tend to be rougher with equipment (handling, grease, oil, etc.)

the current policy would make sense. I've advocated this kind of policy and have implemented it myself. All of the points Mark makes are right on target, of course.

my $0.02!

 

[Fushigi]

I agree with pretty much everything mubs said. Basically, everyone benefits from newer/upgraded equipment. The office people get the latest/fastest and the factory people still move up to newer -- if not new -- printers.

I take it this policy is favored over paying for maintenance contracts for the factory printers. That'd be your other option.

The printer enclosure is a great idea. It should greatly reduce the dust/particles that's just soo common in a factory environment.

I would take exception to Mark's PCL vs. PostScript comment, though. I haven't checked lately, but in my experience PostScript printing is generally slower than PCL, uses more network bandwidth as the jobs are larger, & PostScript-capable printers are generally more expensive than PCL. On the driver issue, install the basic Windows LaserJet 4 or 5 driver (Si if duplexing is available) and forget about it. Any modern PCL printer will work just fine.

- Fushigi

 

[P5-133XL]

I will not disagree that Postscript is slower, uses more network BW, are more expensive. My point is that they are also driver independant. The same is not true for PCL.

 

[Cliptin]

Thanks. If it matters, we are talking about ~80 office printers and ~30 shop printers.

OK, some responses to generate more input:

* factory staff tend to be rougher with equipment (handling, grease, oil, etc.)

Not a problem. By far the major problem in the shop is air quality. Eventually dust from the various processes (welding, grinding, general metal working) gets into the equipment and causes malfunction.

If the two places (the office and the shop) needs were signifigantly different someone could easily justify purchasing seperate items for the office and shop independantly.

However, if you guys both have the same needs, but the office requires equipment to look nicer... be faster ... or have more reliability/availability in their equipment then I'd say you are doing a good job at being frugal and saving a few bucks.

The needs of both groups are identical as far as basic printing, speed, availability. Duplexing needs differ as well as print-tray size. Looks are unimportant (to me at least).

What kind of inconvenience do the office workers see when you replace a printer? is it transparent or are there noticeable changes that the workers have to adjust for?

How would the shop benefit by getting new equipment... esp when you consider that the quipment will have a shorter life span in the harsher environment?

Usually the disruption is in regards to changing printer drivers (The more people who use the printer the more work for me too.), the toner is a different cartridge, you clear jams differently. Some things are a big deal. :-?

I am approching the lifespan degradation of the printers (old or new) as equivalent in each respective environment. I assume that each printer has a certain number of pages left on it and that placing it out on the shop floor modifies that number by a factor. The key is I'm assuming the factor is constant for either old or new printer. And so while the new printer's life may be shortened, it will be longer before I have to replace the printer in that location again. All the time the older printer lasts longer in the protected office environment than it would in the shop. I'm considering the worse-case-scenario as the one where I have to replace

The thing that you are doing wrong is PCL - Use Postscript printers. With PCL each printer has a different driver and thus the inconvience to the office workers. With Postscript, the printer can change and the driver does not need to, unless you are using a specific Printer option like duplexing.

Currently, code in the custom business system is written directly for PCL output including things like barcoding. I do not have direct control over that and would need a good reason to influence change in that area. In my admittedly limited experience in output technologies, I had equated PCL to PS in function and nearly in form. What are the pluses and minuses to using PCL or PS? Do you need different PS driver for duplexing?

The other thing that may help is to invest in a printer enclosure for the shop. The point is to diminish the effect of the enviornment on the printer. ... How about replacing the shop printer with a refurbished or used unit (Ebay?). Thus you will lose less value when it dies its premature death. This is effectively what you are doing by the current policy, but, since you aren't replacing the office printer, you don't have the network driver instalation overhead.

I'm not sure the printers are under enough duress to warrant a $300 enclosure per. If you have better sources let me know. I googled. I'm not sure how ebay would fly.

PS. It is possible I am over-complicating the issue.

 

[Bozo]

You have to make your decision based on your place of work. In our plant, an office printer can go unused for days, even with 15 people with access to it on the network. But the printers on the plant floor are used almost continuosly.

Politics often plays a part in the purchase. Office types think they must have the latest, greatist, fastest, newest equipment when the one they have is working just fine. Personel on the plant floor just want something that works so they can get their job done. Of course, its the office types that control the purse strings, so you know who wins. And because the office types 'bought' the printer, that means they can't posible give the old one to production. So the old printer ends up in a storage room even if it is still functional. It's a mess.

Bozo

 

[Fushigi]

I will not disagree that Postscript is slower, uses more network BW, are more expensive. My point is that they are also driver independant. The same is not true for PCL.

True enough. You don't have to change the PS driver when you move from printer model to printer model unless you need an updated driver to support special features like color PS. Dunno if duplexing requires a different driver.

But the same is very easily achieved on the PCL side of the fence. As I said, just standardize the PCL printer driver at the least common denominator .. PCL5 with duplexing capability. Say, the 5Si driver that ships with Windows. Install that and you'll never have to update your drivers again unless you change to a non-PCL format.

- Fushigi

 

[Tannin]

As Fugshui says, PCL can be used as a poor man's Postscript. In my office I do exactly as he suggests - load a Laserjet 4 driver and then plug any PCL printer I like in, without bothering to adjust anything. I've had 5ls, 6ls, an Epson, a Xerox and a Kyocera, never adjusted the drivers in all these years. Note though, that my needs are for plain text documents, nothing else, and I'm not taking advantage of some features that my newer printers offer. As I see it, this is no loss for a considerable gain.

On the deeper question, my feeling is that new gear can be degraded by small items (slight scratch on the drum, for example) which in older gear are insignificant (what matter 32 slight scratches as against 33 slight scratches?). I think the current policy makes sense.

 

[mubs]

Bozo, it works the other way too :wink:

A long time ago, far away, I worked at a place where the warehouse manager would constantly pester me for a "latest, fastest, with big monitor" PC. Those were the days when the 486 reigned, and the Pentium had just come out. The funny thing is, he was mostly computing illiterate and it was a prestige issue. He only used Excel on his PC, solely as a glorified adding machine.

Needless to say he didn't get the latest/greatest, but the analysts in the office who crunched numbers on huge spreadsheets did.

 

[Cliptin]

Thanks for the thoughts. Sounds like a sound policy after all. The real problem then is addressing the driver issue and you've given me some good ideas. Normally I would address this issue with a proper AD or NW implementation but I don't have direct control over that either. :roll:

What are the pluses and minuses to using PCL or PS? Do you need different PS driver for duplexing?

I would still like some feedback on this though.

 

[Mercutio]

If you've got a proper 2000 server - AD or not - you can have it handle the print queuing. Set up your generic spools and point your PCs to that. 2000 also supports point-and-print, so PCs will pick up the right driver the first time they try to print (if you've configured it).
Of course, that's hell on network traffic, since we're mostly talking about network printers (jobs get sent twice), but maybe it's worth the overhead in terms of manpower costs to your organization.

 

[Cliptin]

When I suggested implementing something with NW NDPS, I got a smile an an "OK, we'll look into it". I told them point blank how to set it up but still nothing. Oh well, it's their dime. I can't force them.