What can Brown do for you? Pen 6 part 2

Here's part 1.

So you saw what I was going in for. I really didn't want to be there and kind of went through the motions for the first week. Our belt didn't turn around at all. I just wandered around feeling sorry for myself about getting kicked out of the sort aisle.

It wasn't until that first Friday that things changed. We had a bad day and went down bad. Lou was watching with his boss and Marie. And that's when it hit me. They wanted me to fail. So I called everyone around and gave a pretty good speech. I told them that no one believed in us and that we needed to show them how to run this belt.

So I devised a plan of attack over the weekend. I decided to do what my former full-time supervisor Shon used to say, take away their excuses. I knew why Pen 6 couldn't go down on time because they told us plenty of times it was the missorts. So if I could go down clean with the missorts, it would show that it is possible and that the sort aisle would need to just get better.
I put missort carts in between all the loaders and one in front of loader #2. I told him to take off all Corona center packages (Chino, Chino Hills, Diamond Bar, Norco) since there was never a lot of those to begin with. This put more pressure on loader #1, but his cars were more bulk stops anyway, so he didn't have a hard time loading. I put a cart in between loaders #3 & #5 and told them to take off any Foothill center packages (Rancho, Upland, Mt. Baldy, Alta Loma, Pomona, Montclair, Claremont). And I had a cart in between loaders #2 & #4 that pulled off any Pen 5 packages, which was mainly Ontario 91764. In theory, the missorts left over would be for Pen 7 and loaders #5 & #6 could just slide them on the rollers.

It was a thing of beauty. It was rough the first day because they complained about the extra work, but I assured them it would be better in the end. Before the second day was over it was clear this was working. We started to turn the ship around quickly. Now just like on Pen 9, I held the bulk until the end, but this time no one questioned it.

There was one time I yelled at Tom so bad because he delivered 7 carts of missorts from another belt after all but 3 of my loaders had left. I was fuming mad. I became proactive and sent loader #2 to search different places to find the carts and bring them to us.

The sort aisle noticed a decrease in the amount of returns coming back because we weren't sending as much back. In fact, every cart we built we would hand deliver it to the proper Pen.

In a matter of 2 weeks, Pen 6 went from being the laughing stock of the building to the best Pen in the building in terms of pieces per hour. Adrian came out after the sort and looked around and was very impressed and always asked "why couldn't the sup before you run it like this?" I really didn't know why. It wasn't the hardest fix I ever did.

Tom and Lou were both very complementary of the changes made to Pen 6 and congradulated me often. But the best was still to come, Shon my old full time sup from Pen 9 was back in the building as my new full time sup...again. Things were looking up. But we all know that didn't last long. Enter Chuck, Mike G., and a lot of empty promises.