Staging brick so the crew sets

The waste

Setting thin brick into a liner is bench work, and bench work only pays when the material is at the bench. Every step to a pallet across the bay is a step taken hundreds of times a shift. Every brick pulled back out of a pocket because it was chipped is the same work done twice.

Fired clay varies from run to run and from pallet to pallet. Set a bed straight through one pallet, then start the next, and the shade steps at the changeover. That step is cast into the panel permanently and there is nothing to be done about it afterwards.

Landing the pallets

Bring the brick to the run before the crew starts. Stage pallets along the bed so a setter can reach material without leaving the bed, and keep the aisle behind them clear so the forklift can bring the next one without anybody moving out of the way.

Stack and store so nothing can slide or topple. Banding is under tension, so stand to the side when it is cut, and cut it with the pallet on the ground rather than on the forks.

Only trained and evaluated operators move the pallets. That is the rule for every powered industrial truck in the plant, and a pallet of brick is a heavy, high load in a bay with people working in it.

Blending

Draw from several pallets at once rather than emptying one before opening the next. Mix as you go. The eye reads a gradual variation across a wall as texture and an abrupt line as a defect.

If the job has multiple production runs on it, that belongs in the preproduction meeting with the supplier and it belongs written on the bed instructions.

Culling

Look at the brick going into the pocket. Chips on the face, a corner knocked off, a brick that will not seat flat, a brick that is visibly out of size for the pocket: all of those get set aside before they go in.

A brick that seats proud or shy of the joint rib leaves a ledge, and that ledge reads as a sloppy joint from the street and can hold water at the top of the brick. A brick cannot be pulled out after the pour, so the check happens at the hand, every time.

Give the culled brick a bin of its own, away from the run. A cull pile within reach becomes the supply the moment somebody is in a hurry.

The count

Keep the count against the takeoff as the run goes. Finding out at the last panel that the brick is short is a schedule problem, and finding out early is a phone call. Corners and special shapes are worth counting separately, because they are the items that arrive last and run out first.