If you’re having trouble retaining employees because they’re bored of pulling parts out of a mold - have any of them considered having a crack at automating that specific bit of the job with say (and yes this is going to sound naive) a programmable robot?
There will be versions of the machine that automate more of the process. But they will cost money and require maintenance too look after and adjust.
I used to work a similar job[1] at a plastics factory. We had about 12 machines in the area I worked. Some machines automated remove stuff from the mold, some removing the excess, some putting though the leak tester. Each stage of automation was an additional thing that had to be configured and adjusted.
Often we'd only make an item for a shift or two. At one point the company bought a new machine (the size of a 2 car garage) that automated some more bits. The machine took 18 months of adjusting before it worked reliably.
[1] Blowmold, ranging from 750ml bottles, 5-20 litre jerry cans, sections of culvert pipe.
> The machine took 18 months of adjusting before it worked reliably
That doesn’t tell the story of the overall ROI. After 18 months of shakiness were those folks able to go do other work? Did the work pay for itself on a 5 year timeline? 10 years? Achieving reliability is huge - did the company spin that for PR?
It was 18 months of somebody working on it full time plus people being flow out from the manufacturer.
From memory once it was going it still didn't live up to all the hype. It worked about as well as the 30 year old machines next to it and required a minimum wage person (ie me) to operate it (plus a fitter for anything technical).
The company I worked for went out of business 10 years later.
This is the sort of machine I'm talking about (although a lot nicer and more uptodate than the ones I used. Faster cycle time too)
Could be something they try out of hours.