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added to B&L Ireland's products, new quality problems arose.
Like B&L Ireland, before becoming fully operational, B&L
Hong Kong underwent an initial period of training those involved
in the sunglass assembly operations. Employees of B&L Hong Kong
went to Rochester to observe B&L Inc.'s assembly operations, and
employees of B&L Inc. traveled to Hong Kong to help train employ-
ees of B&L Hong Kong. B&L Hong Kong also established a pilot
program in which its employees assembled sample batches of
sunglasses to send to B&L Inc. in Rochester for approval. Just
as B&L Ireland experienced quality problems in the early stages
of its operation, B&L Hong Kong was unable to meet its quality
standards during 1983.
Unlike B&L Ireland, B&L Hong Kong did not hire any full-time
instructors. Rather, training of new operators, inspectors, or
other production personnel was handled by B&L Hong Kong's assis-
tant production supervisor and group leaders. A new operator
received one-on-one supervision for the first two or three weeks
of training to teach that person the basic techniques of assem-
bling sunglasses. An inspector kept track of the defective
sunglasses assembled by the new operator in order to determine
the areas in which the new operator needed to improve.
The typical new operator achieved B&L Hong Kong's basic
daily productivity target of 150 units per day within four to six
weeks after the commencement of the training program. During the
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