Kick The Can Down The Road

I'm not talking about Congress and the debt ceiling, though that title is appropriate for that topic as well.  FWIW, what is even the point of having a debt ceiling if you are just going to raise it every time you want to spend more money?  One of these days, that debt is going to be called in...but that's a different subject for a different post.  Hold on to your butts is all I've got to say. 

No, I'm talking about the quality policy at work.  They very much have a kick the can down the road attitude when it comes to quality.  Take today, for example, but first let me give you some background information so this post will make more sense. 

This is an evaporator coil similar to what we make out there.  It's not one of ours; it's a random photo I copped off the internet.  

The part I make is that copper tube with all the little copper tubes coming out of it up at the top of the coil.  

Now, let me step outside of my story to comment on that brazing job.  That's awful.  I don't know why anyone would put that on their company's website.  Our worst sub-brazer does a much better job than that. It kind of makes me feel bad that I'm going to trash the quality at our plant. Not so bad that I won't do it, but still...

OK, back to my story.  The big tube is called a header or manifold.  The smaller tubes are called adapter tubes, or in the plant vernacular, legs.  This morning I received in my order a header that had not had any holes punched into it.  Yes, I understand that people make mistakes from time to time, but here is the thing.  

After the header leaves the punching machine, it gets end formed, spin closed, re-rounded, flo drilled, and then someone brazes the tap fitting into it.  It's not really necessary that you understand what all that means.   You only need to know that that header went through five additional processes and not one person noticed that it didn't have any holes in it.  Everyone who did anything else to that header just tossed it into the bin and sent it to the next work station.  Apparently, nobody even looked at it.

They just kicked the can down the road.

Moving right along...

In knitting news, I’m sitting here debating whether I have enough yarn for another headband…

I realize you have no perspective to show you how big that cake of yarn is, so just imagine it's the size of a large orange or small grapefruit.  Bigger than a baseball, but smaller than a softball. 

Maybe I have enough, maybe I don't.  I think I'm going to cast on anyway.  

I've never been known to back down from a game of yarn chicken.