The workshop of the customer company pre-assembled heavy professional equipment (~250 kg main module, ~50 kg satellite module) that arrived disassembled from the OEM's factory (containerized imports).
Each assembled unit had to pass two mandatory validations before shipping to the end customer :
- Pneumatic + water validation — verify no air or water leaks, the function of each motorized instrument, the spray circuit response, a clean purge cycle.
- Electrical validation — measure leakage currents (Fluke-class instrument), validate insulation, validate the control keyboard and the foot pedal.
The two benches were physically separated :
- Bench 1 (pneumatic) : on one side of the workshop. Required the compressor, water bottles, specific fittings.
- Bench 2 (electrical) : on the other side. Required the Fluke, a desktop PC, a dedicated 230 V outlet.
To run a full test, the technician had to :
- Connect the unit to bench 1, run the pneumatic procedure.
- Disconnect, move the unit (250 kg + 50 kg = not light), reconnect to bench 2.
- Run the electrical procedure.
Cost : 3 h 50 per unit (baseline measurement). And more importantly : every station switch caused mental context loss → missed steps → reruns → frustration.
- Average time per full test : 3 h 50
- Number of units per year : ~450 (internal figure — anonymized)
- Total annual time on testing : ~1,700 h
- Bench-to-bench transitions per test : 2 (move + 2 connect/disconnect cycles)
Verbatim collected during the existing-state analysis :
"When you switch from pneumatic to electrical, you're no longer in it. You miss steps. You go back. And the customer on the other end has nothing to do with that."
This is exactly the kind of signal that a good functional analysis (the APTE method) translates into measurable service functions. See 01-apte.md.