My arm-and-gripper estimate left the fixture work and staff effort vague. Colleague is fed up, fairly. How should I scope a small molded-block unloading pilot so we can judge the whole job, not argue over another clean transfer video?
Agree the decision before the demonstration. One defined job, its accepted output, setup and changeover work, assistance and recovery needs, compared with the existing method. Include fixture development separately from recurring work. A small pilot can expose a bad assumption without claiming a production reliability figure.
The assumption behind my estimate was that fixture preparation belonged to the existing job. My colleague says the robot version needs another locating stage. That difference was never priced; it is exactly what the pilot needs to make visible.
Have both of you watch the ordinary preparation. I would not settle that dispute by allocating it to whichever budget has space. If the proposed method creates the work, the comparison needs to show it somewhere.
We've agreed one normal order with its changeover, the current manual method as baseline, and a prepared supervised robot trial within the integrator's approved scope. All additional locating and assistance time is included. We also set a spending limit before more fixture development.
That sounds testable. Will your colleague get to perform the agreed ordinary tasks without you quietly doing the preparation first? Assistance is useful evidence, but only if somebody records it.
She did, with assistance recorded. The extra locating stage and changeover took more staff time than the unloading saved on this job, even before further fixture development. We've stopped this proposal and kept manual unloading. Thanks, Daniel; the agreed question made that result much easier to accept.