How much pouch preparation justifies another insert?

Probably not. That's uncomfortable.

Fair enough. Put the next order on paper from bags arriving to trays leaving, with your preparation in the hours. You don't have to decide the fate of the whole idea before you can refuse one poor next step.

Preparation wasn't in our comparison. Only time at the robot.

Could you use your actual preparation notes to add it back? Rough hours with their source would be more useful than another guess. Some old time may be impossible to recover.

I have job cards for the inserts. Enough to show the scale, at least.

That's worth answering before the next trial. I once helped redesign a station around one very accommodating technician, then realised we'd made their helpfulness part of the equipment specification. Nobody had budgeted a second person who knew all the adjustments.

Nobody else currently. Supervisor agrees we should pause new pouch variants.

We kept a single repetitive order after a trial like this and dropped the mixed work. Worked better for us, but only after another operator could set it up without the original programmer hovering. Does one of your orders deserve that smaller trial?

And what happens to the manual packing space while you decide? The operators still need somewhere sensible to do the orders you've paused.

Manual bench restored. One repeat pouch stays under review. No more inserts authorised meanwhile.

Let the packers help choose what to test on that repeat order. They've probably seen the difficult bags you spend time persuading into position.