The company has asked you, as an independent communication consultant, to evaluate the procedures they have received and make a recommendation of one of them. The audience for the job sheets at Frito-Lay, Inc. consists of packaging machine operators and mechanics. Packaging machine operators turn on and operate the 15-foot, noisy, dangerous machine that takes potato chips from a hopper, fills a bag, seals the bag, and send the bags out a conveyor belt where the operator puts them into cardboard boxes, seals the boxes, and puts them on a pallet ready for shipping. They then turn their job sheets over to the mechanics. When they get busy the operators forget to do their running patrols, and do them incompletely, ignoring areas where problems might develop.
Mechanics have to fix all the machines in the plant, including bagging machines and hoppers.
These machines require routine maintenance and also special maintenance when belts need replacement or regulators go haywire. They get job sheets from the operators and review them as a way to anticipate repairs and schedule down times. The mechanics complain that the operators don't do their running patrols. They see repair work showing up on their budget that could have been avoided if the operators had foreseen the problem with the machine. The goals of the document derived from interviews and discussions with packaging machine operators and mechanics about the job sheets for the running patrols on the Hayssen, Ishida, and Skinny-Clipper machines used in a potato chip factory.