Machinist Apprentice | Shop Cleaning | Day 65

No contract work today, so I got to spend the whole day cleaning the shop from top to bottom!

Still working the design for the re-organization of the shop tool holder station and setup/breakdown area. Also, talking with my boss a bit about possibly taking on more small-time production work for the shop and hiring on a new guy. He went over some of the areas he's faced in the past and doesn't especially like production work due to how hard you have to push to get enough work to pay for everything. It's a big game, with big wins and significant losses if contracts don't come through like expected. One of the ways to shield yourself from this is to diversify into different industries/companies instead of going with one major contract from a specific business, where if they fall through, you're up a creek. 

The shop isn't set up for any kind of production work as-is and would require some changes to the way we do things now to get to that level. My boss is specifically thinking of small-time production, with 20-100 parts maximum per run, not trying to compete with China or shops set up for thousands/millions in production.