$TSLA $TSLAQ #OpsMgmt101 Thanks for sharing. 1/ The good: Clean factory floor which is good.
The bad: Any lean or 5S is practice is very weak/poor. In good 5S it is a very "visual" factory. There is no color coding on floor or around racks to signify the state of WIP.
2/ They use a lot of red bins which goes against conventional visual systems. Red is usually meant for scrap/quarantined material.
3/ Inefficient use of boxes: There is a lot of use of flow through racks with boxes and not kitted materials. Which is a huge waste (excess material) and poor efficiency. This requires operators to open boxes, grab material out of their protective sleeves, then do assembly.
4/ Safety: Forklifts delivering material line side: This is inherently dangerous. Do you see how they had to step around the forklift? It's dangerous in tight spaces.
5/Overall: Their op's is very basic. It's like clean auto factory from 30 years ago. Nothing "disruptive" or "innovative." It is definitely not lean and definitely not efficient.
6/ Forgot to mention that this is final assembly. Their station layout and lack of kitted materials leads adds poor productivity and speed. This is one of the reasons why the cannot hit 70 Jobs and Hour like other auto factories.
7/ And another thing: Inconsistent use of barcode / address system. As you look through video, there isn't a consistent use of an address system & barcodes on the racks to help the f'n forklift drivers find the right location much less have an accurate inventory in your system
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1/$TSLA #OpsMgmt101#PoorQuality 1/ @lopezlinette, nice article. This is not surprising to me or other industry veterans. I have one rebuttal; FPY is not 14%, it is probably closer to 0%.
@lopezlinette 2/ In order to meet their 5k/week commitment, Tesla put untrained interns and employee’s on the line and lowered and probably lowered their quality standards.
@lopezlinette 3/ There was no amount of QC inspection that could’ve prevented quality escapes. Actually, Tesla probably lowered their quality standards to ship more product. In industry terms, they basically “shipped shit.” Multiple twitter threads and in the forums claiming poor quality.
1/ Updated rant:
You see that fork lift to the right? That is how they are LOADING the entire car and carrier to the line. Never in all my automotive career have I seen this. This is an epic cluster f*#%. No one plans to put an assembly line in an uncontrolled environment.
2/ So, they are literally picking up the car and carrier with a forklift from post paint inspection within the factory. Then they are driving it out of the factory over a shitty parking lot, jostling the vehicle body the entire way.
3/ they have to deliver all the material like the entire door sub assembly (post paint), instrument cluster, interior trim, wire harness, seats, carpet, head liners, front and rear glass, etc..etc.. to the f$&@‘n tent