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GSPI’s Virtual Day 
(or The Case Versus The Shifting Eight Hours?) by Arturo B. del Ayre
N
ostalgic feelings of things past cannot be denied by most GSPI’semployees, composed of a majority of ex-NSC employees, but thewisdom of what work best then might be of minor consequence nowif most of us do not consider its effects to our personal, as well ascorporate, lives. Thus, with the coming of a new and hopefullyprosperous new year for GSPI, a paradigm change is hereby proposed.
Global Steel instituted the existing Shifting Schedule on February 2004. Officially, a particular GSPI day starts at6:00 a.m. and ends the next day, however, all transactions occurring between 12:00 midnight to 6:00 a.m., nowdubbed as “C” shift (2200Hto 0600H) are logged the preceding day. Evening (“B”) shifts start at 2:00 p.m. andends at 10:00 p.m. (1400H to 2200H). Any shifting scheme affects the monitoring of process parameters,delays and shift events; production recording; personnel attendance and leaves, among others.Under the GSPI’s scheme, the three shifts span the real-time present and the real-time next day. In contrast,NSC’s scheme approximated more the real-time present date for all the three shifts. As such, the followinginterrelated scenarios are illustrated to prove that the present scheme, although aimed at originality and inconsonance with other Global Steel’s group of companies, is:A. Un
REAL
istic - B.
INCOMPATIBLE
- C. Un-
NATURAL
 
 
Real-time Daily Productionencompasses two days. “C”Shift Production is dated theprevious day.
 
Reports do not really containwhat actually transpired duringthe whole real-time presentdate.
 
Real-time on modern computersystems is designed to beforward-looking.
 
Real-time programming isdifficult, if not impossible.
 
Time-series data are prone todecision-making errors.
 
As per the Philippine LaborCode, overtimes are work hours rendered AFTER thefirst eight hours for a day.
 
Data processes/shift eventshappen before the real-timedate.
A. UnREAListic
 
Real-Time Daily Production encompasses two days. “C” Shift Production is dated the previous day.Only the production during shifts “A” and “B” are the real production for a particular REAL-TIME date.“C” shift production are post-dated, the so-called “
the shifting eight hours
”, thus the productionbetween 12 midnight (0000H) is virtually produced prior to shifts “A” and “B”. A coil packed on, forexample, 31C December, 2006 were actually saleable on real-time 01C January, 2007 to our corporatecustomers, unaware of the 8-hour discrepancy or the GSPI’s work-shifts. Any complaint would be
Change is inevitable, unless we cannot learn from lessons of the past.
 
 
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seemingly difficult to trace, except of course using the coil number. Process audits are also unreliable dueto erroneous recording of date of production, a hold-over of NSC’s scheme owing to the fact that oldhabits die hard. Holding times for Work-in-Process, particularly for “C” shift outputs after 12 midnight, arevirtually prolonged with the addition of approximately 16 hours (to account for “A” and “B” shifts).
 
Reports do not really contain what actually transpired during the whole real-time present date.Daily production reports, usually prepared right after “C” shift, are prone to error. Due to a very shorttime allotted for its preparation, “C” shifts end at 6 a.m. while reports are due 8 a.m., corrections arerelegated during the weekly summaries. Meanwhile, delays are recorded using real-time, thus correlationbetween production and delay occurrence is tedious. Furthermore, delay recording are prone to encodingerrors because most are now more accustomed to post-dating for “C” shifts. Incident reports, historicallybased on shift logs, have to be verbosely annotated to indicate real-time dates in addition to the recordedGSPI shift dates. Say, “power failure occurred 0200H 31 Dec 2006 (actually, 0200H 01 Jan 2007) . . .”
B. INCOMPATIBLE
 
R
eal-time on modern computer systems is designed to be forward-looking.Digital clocks, applied on computers, run from 00:00 to 23:59. The IBM PC was the first widely availablepersonal computer that came equipped with date/time hardware built into the motherboard, andsubsequent add-on peripheral boards included real-time clock chips with on-board battery back-up. Mostmodern IBM-compatible computers follow the IBM standard. The 6-hour (0000H to 0600H) discrepancywas evident during the C-shift production run on 31 December, 2006. Production for that particular shift(real-time: 01 January 2007) were un-encoded because the GMIC’s system date (also: 01 January 2007)discarded all input after 12:00 midnight stating that input date cannot be less than the system date.Fortunately, after some system tweaks, the issue was resolved by using the real-time date.
 
Real-time programming is difficult, if not impossible.Even using the most advanced computer systems and the most sophisticated programming software, the 8-hour discrepancy is too difficult to capture. In subtle defiance to the GSPI’s scheme of beginning each dayon “A” shift, these in-house software applications to include Personnel Attendance Monitoring, Applicationfor Leave of Absence, and Overtime Monitoring used real-time dates for programming simplicity. Toconsider the GSPI’s scheme for these Oracle-based programs would be a programming headache! ActualShifting Schedules for line personnel start on “C” shift, not “A” shift. It is noteworthy, moreover, that theprinted Shifting Schedules are presented to start “A”.
 
Time-series data are prone to decision-making errors.A typical example is in production process parameters monitoring.
0.01.02.03.04.05.06.07.08.0A A B B B C C C A A A B B B C C31.12.2006 01.01.2007Tank1 Tank2 Tank3 Tank4
0.01.02.03.04.05.06.07.08.0C C A A B B B C C C A A A B B B31.12.2006 01.01.2007Tank1 Tank2 Tank3 Tank4
 
Graph A Graph B
 
The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.--Nathaniel Branden
 
 
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Compare the two graphs showing PKL Tanks concentration parameters above using exactly the
samedataset
. Graph A shows the
straight forward layout
where date and shift data are both used as axis.(This graph was manipulated to conform to the GSPI’s shifting scheme.) Graph B shows the same data butarranged on a
typical time series
. Discrepancies are very obvious in Tank 4 time series whereas therespective data during the C-shift, particularly those after 12 midnight, are now situated prior to A and Bshifts. Other Tanks’ parameters have also similarly shifted, although they are very subtle.
C. Un-NATURAL
 
As per the Philippine Labor Code, overtimes are work rendered AFTER the first 8 hours of a day.There was one true anecdote during the initial implementation of GSPI’s shifting scheme. A workererroneously claimed that his overtime was for work rendered “C” shift because he already worked during“A” shift. Unnatural though it seems, the worker was virtually correct to claim overtime for “C” based onthe assumption that each GSPI’s day begins “A” shift. Unfortunately, the Philippine Labor Codeimplementing rules stipulates that overtime is claimed after the first eight hours of work, specifically thefirst eight hours after 12 midnight. Thus, while production schedules follow the A-B-C scheme, thepersonnel shifting schedule follows C-B-A scheme.
 
Data processes/shift events happen before the real-time date.Events during the “C” shift cannot be correctly correlated outright without manipulation or correction of respective dates. In the annealing process, example cycles shown below are virtually unrealistic:In both examples, solving for the durations of respective stages of annealing would result to errors. InExample A: Purging and Heating virtually occur before Charging with respect to real-time. In Example B:Air Cooling seemingly occurred before Soaking, or Discharging occurs prior to Water Cooling, an obviousimpossibility. Using the GSPI Date for a Six-Sigma project could be utterly impossible, except tweakingeach individual unreal-time to its equivalent real-time dates.On another situation, “C” shift events are post-dated. When untoward incidents happen during the shift,the events are logged at GSPI using a previous date. The problem, moreover, is pronounced when dealingwith the same events in coordination with the outside world, say government agencies, which uses thereal-time scheme. The result: two official documents reporting the same events do not share the samedates.
The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.--Nathaniel Branden
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