Bronco production line equipment suffers fire

[ZackDanger]

Lol true.
I've done a lot of different things in my life.
Currently a plant manager.
However, I've done it all from welding, painting, maintenance, etc.
As a side gig a few years back a buddy and I ran an industrial repair business and you would be amazed at some things that "just happen".
A lot of times you just stand back, look at the situation and think "how in the world did this happen?"
The most FUBAR'ed situation I can remember having to diagnose and fix is a racoon climbed up a column one day at a factory and shorted himself out between two legs of 480V 3 phase on a bridge crane power rail. It melted the contactors, wires inside in a control panel, fried some overhead lights. And it smelled horrible.
I used to have a poster on my toolbox where a rhino's rear end was sticking out of a steaming boiler and the caption said "just another normal day in maintenance."
It was very true.

We have a very expensive and well engineered piece of kit at my agency. Years in development to make it “idiot proof.” It’s mission critical and must perform the first time every time in every possible operating condition.

One day someone managed to get it jammed up in a way that should not have been physically possible... but I had photographic evidence. I have tried to reproduce the problem to better understand it and trouble shoot, but I’ve never been successful.

I’m told those pictures now hang in the manufacturer's engineering department with the caption:

“These are the idiots you’re engineering for.”

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[Newbie]

I hope I don't get anyone in trouble for sharing this, that's why I censored the post. But I know someone who works at Dearborn stamping and they shared that there was a fire on one of the cranes used for setting presses on the Bronco line. I edited this post to remove their Facebook post as suggested by others here.
I really hope that they can get this fixed soon.

 

[Vigor]

Id prefer them to get to a root cause of the issue and address it. Wouldn't want an employee to die just so you can get your bronco a day earlier lmao

Well it depends on the employee
Haha... I'm kidding
I figured it was just old
My TV breaks, I get a new one

(I clearly know nothing about manufacturing cars)

 

[92EddieBauer]

Well it depends on the employee
Haha... I'm kidding
I figured it was just old
My TV breaks, I get a new one

(I clearly know nothing about manufacturing cars)

I don't know much about manufacturing cars but I worked in EHS for a construction company and now one of the largest tractor trailer carriers in the U.S. Part of it was tongue in cheek & playing arm chair EHS Manager. The other part is accurate, can't always throw money at things. Even if they get a new crane or press or whatever there is still some downtime for installation and training the employees on the new process/operation/hazards/maintenance/Lock out tag out.

 

[pan-y-cerveza]

I doubt this will cause a tangible delay. They'll have it back up and running quickly.

 

[KyTruckPlant]

And right now, at that facility, there are 2 guys having this discussion:

 

[vrtical]

This wasnt on the list.

 

[Toccoa]

 

[Sandbergo]

Pretty much how this Bronco release has been. Just saying.

 

[Wanted33]

Manufacturing usually has contingency plans for things like this, as much as we can.
Either bridge cranes that travel the length of an area and are able to travel along the path of the hobbled crane, extra VFD's, contactors, and motors on hand, whatever.
We are a smaller company and I made it a point to order an extra VFD, extra contactors, extra wire rope, trolley drive motors, buss fuses, sheaves, pulleys, etc. to keep on the shelf.
The worst situation we've had that we could not handle in-house kept us down for maybe 2 days.
We have a crane repair service on call.
I'm sure if my privately owned company has these plans a multi-national fortune 500 company has that and more.
I wouldn't sweat it.

@broadicustomworks I agree, been there, seen that. Most of the times I saw this it wasn't as bad as it sounds. Seized bearings, fluid lines break, etc. Equipment was back in action with very little downtime. Manufacturing companies are usually ready for these type of problems. I'm hoping this is the situation at MAP, and that no one was injured. My biggest concern was keeping the supervisors calm while things were being repaired. I'm sure you've seen that line supervisors can get quite nervous when it comes to downtime. The last thing they wanted to see was the group supervisor coming down the hall.

 

[Svrdram]

I've worked at Ford's for 21 years and a I'm currently skilled trades, that thing will be up and running in hours. I had a large fire in one of the machines and had guys working on it around the clock for 6 days. Had to teplace every wire in the machine but had it up and running like nothing happend.

 

[Bronco4lyfe85]

Manufacturing usually has contingency plans for things like this, as much as we can.
Either bridge cranes that travel the length of an area and are able to travel along the path of the hobbled crane, extra VFD's, contactors, and motors on hand, whatever.
We are a smaller company and I made it a point to order an extra VFD, extra contactors, extra wire rope, trolley drive motors, buss fuses, sheaves, pulleys, etc. to keep on the shelf.
The worst situation we've had that we could not handle in-house kept us down for maybe 2 days.
We have a crane repair service on call.
I'm sure if my privately owned company has these plans a multi-national fortune 500 company has that and more.
I wouldn't sweat it.

Happens all the time. You would be surprised the amount of things that break in a given day in the grocery stores we service for electrical. Entire refrigeration racks, breakers, fuses, compressors etc. Something happens every single day, par for the course!

 

[L8apex]

@broadicustomworks I agree, been there, seen that. Most of the times I saw this it wasn't as bad as it sounds. Seized bearings, fluid lines break, etc. Equipment was back in action with very little downtime. Manufacturing companies are usually ready for these type of problems. I'm hoping this is the situation at MAP, and that no one was injured. My biggest concern was keeping the supervisors calm while things were being repaired. I'm sure you've seen that line supervisors can get quite nervous when it comes to downtime. The last thing they wanted to see was the group supervisor coming down the hall.

According to OP this was at Dearborn stamping, not MAP. And who knows the dies for the Bronco may have already been in place when the crane decided to self-immolate.

 

[Wanted33]

According to OP this was at Dearborn stamping, not MAP. And who knows the dies for the Bronco may have already been in place when the crane decided to self-immolate.

Oops, my bad. Same thing still applies.

 

[Dirty Bronco]

CLE won that game but lost the series.

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