Summary of 6th Man
About ERS > 6th Man Distinctives
From Fra Burmeister og Wain's Iron Foundry, by Peder Severin Krøyer, 1885.
ERS Automation’s Sixth Man is a service that empowers a manufacturer to meet the demands of the factory floor.
ERS personnel seamlessly augment a customer’s engineering and maintenance staff to prevent a challenge from becoming a crisis.
Today, plants use in-house staff, temporary staff and outside contractors but there are a number of limitations with these solutions.
Sixth Man by ERS Automation is different.
This covers two sets of conditions:
Whether your technical requirements rise or your in-house capacity drops, Sixth Man is ready for:
Is Sixth Man a threat to in-house staff, temp staff or contractors?
No! It is important that your staff sees Sixth Man as critical help, not a professional threat. Sixth Man is exactly that. When options 1 through 5 are not a good fit, we have your Six. ERS provides this service to even union plants who recognize the cost effective value to both management and workers.
How does it work?
Periodically (weekly or monthly, per preference) ERS technicians collaborate with your staff to build and maintain the working relationships and factory familiarity. This can include checking comprehensive maintenance like ensuring that program backups are up to date, spares ordered, prints have been updated, and the like.
The checklist is updated as necessary and some task or project is accomplished.
The checklist to make the sixth man concept most effective:
Examples:
Case Study: Sabotage.
When a plant closed and its production moved to other factories, the company discovered that its equipment had been sabotaged. ERS Sixth Man was called in to repair the machines and leverage our extensive vendor network. Our staff worked on site for weeks to return the equipment to operational status
Case Study: Confidential Market Research
An electrical equipment manufacturer needed to get competitive market research done without tipping off competitors. The company quietly retained ERS Sixth Man to procure equipment, document sales channels, negotiate price points from prospective vendors, research actual lead times, and more. ERS had previously built equipment and used the customers products. This made gathering of information seamless did not raise any “red flags” in the process.
The Key to Success
The ERS Automation Sixth Man program of regular prior familiarity with both staff and equipment played a critical role in responding as swiftly as the company needed. Had these companies been required to use in-house staff, temp staff or contractors, the results would have been dramatically more painful and less successful.
ERS Sixth Man gives both management and workers peace of mind from having critical skills and personnel backed up.
ERS personnel seamlessly augment a customer’s engineering and maintenance staff to prevent a challenge from becoming a crisis.
Today, plants use in-house staff, temporary staff and outside contractors but there are a number of limitations with these solutions.
- While in-house staff are “yours,” in that they know the systems well, they represent a significant fixed cost for expertise that is intermittently needed.
- Temporary staff save money, but they don’t know your system very well, and they rarely are technically ready for the modern, complex automation challenges of today's factory floor.
- Outside contractors also save money, but their expertise is usually limited to “per machine” or “trade specific.” They work on only specific brand or type of machine or, like electricians, have a relatively narrow area of expertise.
Sixth Man by ERS Automation is different.
- Sixth Man does not incur the fixed costs of an employee.
- Sixth Man brings much greater technical capacity than temp staff.
- Sixth Man knows your employees and the factory’s overall systems.
- Sixth Man offers a broader scope than the traditional outside contractor.
This covers two sets of conditions:
Whether your technical requirements rise or your in-house capacity drops, Sixth Man is ready for:
- Machine breakdown
- Sudden need for customer-driven change in production that require more work than the regular staff can accomplish in the time allotted.
- Vacations, illness, retirement, unplanned separations.
- Adding new equipment or work area.
Is Sixth Man a threat to in-house staff, temp staff or contractors?
No! It is important that your staff sees Sixth Man as critical help, not a professional threat. Sixth Man is exactly that. When options 1 through 5 are not a good fit, we have your Six. ERS provides this service to even union plants who recognize the cost effective value to both management and workers.
How does it work?
Periodically (weekly or monthly, per preference) ERS technicians collaborate with your staff to build and maintain the working relationships and factory familiarity. This can include checking comprehensive maintenance like ensuring that program backups are up to date, spares ordered, prints have been updated, and the like.
The checklist is updated as necessary and some task or project is accomplished.
The checklist to make the sixth man concept most effective:
- Plant-specific safety requirements.
- Machine program and prints location of machine programs and prints.
- Spare parts location .
- Purchasing procedures.
- The “go to” personnel and their contact information for each area in production, maintenance, engineering, etc.
- Any required access badges, codes and passwords needed to accomplish the task.
- Sign any Non Disclosure Agreements.
Examples:
Case Study: Sabotage.
When a plant closed and its production moved to other factories, the company discovered that its equipment had been sabotaged. ERS Sixth Man was called in to repair the machines and leverage our extensive vendor network. Our staff worked on site for weeks to return the equipment to operational status
Case Study: Confidential Market Research
An electrical equipment manufacturer needed to get competitive market research done without tipping off competitors. The company quietly retained ERS Sixth Man to procure equipment, document sales channels, negotiate price points from prospective vendors, research actual lead times, and more. ERS had previously built equipment and used the customers products. This made gathering of information seamless did not raise any “red flags” in the process.
The Key to Success
The ERS Automation Sixth Man program of regular prior familiarity with both staff and equipment played a critical role in responding as swiftly as the company needed. Had these companies been required to use in-house staff, temp staff or contractors, the results would have been dramatically more painful and less successful.
ERS Sixth Man gives both management and workers peace of mind from having critical skills and personnel backed up.