Corporate Down Sizing
Corporate down sizing has become a favorite pastime of many executives in corporations across America. Look out here comes a pink slip. Oh No! Someone is being laid off. The corporation is down sizing.
Well fortunately, this is not the corporate down sizing I am referring to. For the bench jeweler down sizing is not making a company smaller. It is the art of making a ring smaller in diameter to fit the customer’s finger. Corporate means jointly or together. Therefore, corporate down sizing is about doing all your down sizing together to save time and increase productivity.
There is a wise saying related to productivity that states that you need to work on one thing until finished, then move on to the next thing you need to do. For many bench jewelers this means taking one ring and sizing it, then taking the next ring and sizing it, and then a third, until all the rings are sized. Then they go on to a different type of repair. However, if you look at the work they are doing, instead of doing one thing until it is finished and then the next, they are doing many things in order, and then repeating those same activities.
In sizing rings if you size one ring you measure, saw, bend, solder, file, hammer, sand, polish, and clean. Then you repeat all of those activities on each ring you size. In planning your work, you need to think of the one thing that you are doing concerning the work you are doing and not one piece of jewelry. You need to think through each job that you have to do, breaking it down into each activity you will perform. Then group those activities together, and then complete each activity on all the rings before moving on to the next activities.
For highest productivity in the shop, you want to take all the rings to be sized down and mark the back of the shank for the amount of gold to be removed from each ring. Then, when all the rings are marked, pick up your saw, and saw through all the rings without placing the saw down.
When finished sawing, put your saw away and pick up your ring bending pliers. Bend all the shanks closed, making certain there is no visible gap. Group the rings on your bench as to metal content and color, 14k yellow together, 14k white together, 18k yellow, etc. Then place enough solder on your soldering pad to solder all of the rings closed, making a small pile of solder for each metal type.