Just a Pair of Pliers

Manufacturing today is all about “team” with sometimes little regard to what is practical, logical or simply the right thing to do.

Over the years, I have made several trips to a particular out of state factory to assist with mechanical problems of one kind or another. On one such occasion, having finished with the designated business at hand, I mingled around the production work areas exchanging ideas and discussing procedures.
It was then that I noticed the operators were using the same pliers as was used in our processes, but with one small difference. I had modified our pliers to make them spring return after closing, a convenient feature not available in this particular type of pliers at that time.
I mentioned this to one of the operators, who thought this might be helpful and less fatiguing in the long run. She produced an extra pair which I carried to the maintenance shop and proceeded to install the spring feature.
The maintenance people I had been working with, had retired to their perches in the shop, leaned back with feet up on the work bench, awaiting the next reactive call. Blatant, I thought, but still, none of my business.
Anyway, it was a simple task. I drilled a small hole through one handle near the hinge and halfway through the other. I inserted a small compression spring through the hole and drove a spring pin in behind it. In ten minutes I was done.
The operator liked the pliers and two other operators requested the modification. I added the spring to these and later, at the hotel, drew up instructions for the maintenance guys to follow-up with pliers on the other shifts.
Months later, on a return visit for a different mechanical problem, the operators informed me that the maintenance people had opted out of making the pliers modification. Fine, I thought, however, I was completely perplexed when they told me of their reasoning.
It seems they had formed a team of people to evaluate the conversion. They had produced parts estimates, man-hour estimates, with full color displays on charts and graphs, all meticulously prepared to convince themselves that this modification was a total waste of time and resources, unlike, of course, the time spent fabricating the detailed report itself.
Furthermore, they believed they could purchase the pliers, with this feature, cheaper than they could make the change.
Remember, this is just a pair of pliers, but of the type that wasn’t going to be found on the market with spring return, and they knew that. We had already looked and I had told them. But the issue, as far as they were concerned, was closed.
The team had spoken.
Unbound by this impediment, I reworked several more pairs of pliers before I headed for home, knowing that this team directed workforce was destined to litigate itself to a standstill.
The factory later closed for unrelated reasons.