New bracket with the ITD logo.
Reducing monotonous tasks? Why, of course!
Nothing beats fine-tuning a process to the point it ends up saving you considerable amounts of time and money!
Well, that’s just what Harry Richter and Ryan Stewart, of the main D6 Rigby shop, did. Frustrated with the monotonous task of hand building individual plow harness parts for the plow trucks, Harry decided one day 
to start coming up with a way to streamline the process and make manufacturing the harness parts easier and faster. See photo of new harnesses, to left.
Over time, parts and equipment wear down and things break. However, when parts are breaking often, most people try to come up with ways to prohibit that very thing. If something breaks too often, it equals more time and money spent. That’s just what Harry was thinking.
Richter loves working with his hands and fixing things. “It’s what I do — I like to take things and look for ways to make them better.”
After noticing a few problem parts (mainly a certain bracket that kept cracking) on the plow harnesses, he got to thinking…there’s got to be a better way.
Harry being Harry, he began tinkering with ideas he had and started testing them out. After a lot of trial and error, he came up with a great solution for the issues they were having…only problem was the amount of time and labor it took to make the improved parts for these harnesses.
Harry spoke with his supervisor, Ron Miller, about his idea and voiced his concerns about time required. Miller thought this would be a perfect job for Ryan Stewart and the Computer Numerical Control (CNC) plasma table.
Ryan and Harry began collaborating on designs and specifications, and soon they came up with a CAD file of the blueprints. Once they finished the designs, they got to work on manufacturing their own parts by having the CNC machine do the work. As the machine is cutting out the parts, the guys are able to work on other parts and assembly, cutting their labor to a fraction of the time it used to be.
Once the parts are done being cut out from the CNC machine, they go into a tumbler to remove the slag (rough/sharp edges) from being cut. Just using the tumbler alone to remove the slag saved the crew even more time because previously each and every one of these parts would have had to be hand ground with a grinder.
Manufacturing these parts for a while now (a year to be exact), Harry and Ryan decided it would be fun to add the ITD logo to the harness bracket so they did! See photo above article title.
Being in production for over a year, the guys have learned a few things and found some ways to improve the process even more.
“We’re still evolving the process and want to do another run to fine tune it and improve the time- and cost-savings figures,” said Richter. “We either need to build or buy a heavier duty tumbler to withstand the abuse better.”
They are still in the testing phase of durability, but as Harry said, “I enjoy doing quality work and hate doing things haphazardly. I take pride in my work…It’s just what I do.”
Published 08-21-20