Hey pals, what are your good ways of organizing the small parts in your shop? I don't mean "do you put them in little bitty parts drawers or bins," but more "if so, how do you organize those drawers or bins?"
At the Mechanical Gardens, as the small parts get more *sorted *they also get less *organized*. It just becomes static: fifty teeny drawers of small parts or whatever means that people who don't know just what their part is called or looks like, or just where to look for it, are SOL. No bueno.
Do you do something clever to head this off? Organize small parts by bike system, by commonly accessed parts versus parts-of-components (like jockey wheels, star nuts, or seatpost tops), or some other way?
Someone who's worked on this, please help us.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Josh
Josh Bisker 914-500-9890 New York Mechanical Gardens Bike Co-op http://bikecoop.nyc/ 596 Acres http://596acres.org/ Bindlestiff Family Cirkus http://bindlestiff.org/
Are you talking small parts as in small components or parts (like derailleur pulley wheels) or as in fasteners or both?
I always like to see things organized by system (brakes, drivetrain, shifting, etc), which tends to make it easier to direct learners to find their parts and think about their bikes systematically. I'm also a huge fan of layering organizational indicators - so for example, on the bin, having words, coloured text, images, and/or an example part. But this can become overwhelming quickly or quickly become disorganized and just create visual chaos, so it ought to be thought out in consideration of your space and I wouldn't use more than 2 indicators probably.
I'm not a fan of drawers because they seem to always overflow, and then the overflow leads to disorganization and mess.
I remember BICAS having a huge, glorious cylindrical sorter with open bins for small parts and fasteners. They also collected them in rolling carts throughout the day and sorting them was a volunteer task. The most tidy and organized shop I have ever been in.
On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 1:02 PM Josh Bisker jbisker@gmail.com wrote:
Hey pals, what are your good ways of organizing the small parts in your shop? I don't mean "do you put them in little bitty parts drawers or bins," but more "if so, how do you organize those drawers or bins?"
At the Mechanical Gardens, as the small parts get more *sorted *they also get less *organized*. It just becomes static: fifty teeny drawers of small parts or whatever means that people who don't know just what their part is called or looks like, or just where to look for it, are SOL. No bueno.
Do you do something clever to head this off? Organize small parts by bike system, by commonly accessed parts versus parts-of-components (like jockey wheels, star nuts, or seatpost tops), or some other way?
Someone who's worked on this, please help us.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Josh
Josh Bisker 914-500-9890 New York Mechanical Gardens Bike Co-op http://bikecoop.nyc/ 596 Acres http://596acres.org/ Bindlestiff Family Cirkus http://bindlestiff.org/ ____________________________________
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We have little drawings of the part on a little label on the drawer. Eventually I'll do the modern hardware store thing and fasten one of the actual parts to the outside of the drawer instead, and then also label the drawer with the part name.
Lauren's concern about overflowing drawers (haven't we all had overflowing drawers at some point?) recalls that thread where I was so excited about dry erase labels, which I was convinced would solve the labeling problem stemming from reshuffling parts when quantity changes.
I can report on it now I guess - we did implement those labels and they are helpful. They turned out to be a pain to install because we had to cut them to the right size for our bins, which are these industrial plastic things and have a sleeve molded into them of a specific size for a label. Also the adhesive on the dry erase tape isn't the most robust under oily and dirty shop conditions. I was sort of waiting to find a better dry erase adhesive material before reporting. They still work far better than plain paper labels, in any case.
And no, we don't really divide small parts into sections according to system, I feel there's too many cases of overlap to make a system like that comprehensive. I think too many exceptions to a scheme makes the overall scheme confusing.
Cyclista Nicholas
On 2018-07-19 20:24, Lauren Warbeck wrote:
Are you talking small parts as in small components or parts (like derailleur pulley wheels) or as in fasteners or both?
I always like to see things organized by system (brakes, drivetrain, shifting, etc), which tends to make it easier to direct learners to find their parts and think about their bikes systematically. I'm also a huge fan of layering organizational indicators - so for example, on the bin, having words, coloured text, images, and/or an example part. But this can become overwhelming quickly or quickly become disorganized and just create visual chaos, so it ought to be thought out in consideration of your space and I wouldn't use more than 2 indicators probably.
I'm not a fan of drawers because they seem to always overflow, and then the overflow leads to disorganization and mess.
I remember BICAS having a huge, glorious cylindrical sorter with open bins for small parts and fasteners. They also collected them in rolling carts throughout the day and sorting them was a volunteer task. The most tidy and organized shop I have ever been in.
On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 1:02 PM Josh Bisker jbisker@gmail.com wrote:
Hey pals, what are your good ways of organizing the small parts in your shop? I don't mean "do you put them in little bitty parts drawers or bins," but more "if so, how do you organize those drawers or bins?"
At the Mechanical Gardens, as the small parts get more *sorted *they also get less *organized*. It just becomes static: fifty teeny drawers of small parts or whatever means that people who don't know just what their part is called or looks like, or just where to look for it, are SOL. No bueno.
Do you do something clever to head this off? Organize small parts by bike system, by commonly accessed parts versus parts-of-components (like jockey wheels, star nuts, or seatpost tops), or some other way?
Someone who's worked on this, please help us.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Josh
Josh Bisker 914-500-9890 New York Mechanical Gardens Bike Co-op http://bikecoop.nyc/ 596 Acres http://596acres.org/ Bindlestiff Family Cirkus http://bindlestiff.org/ ____________________________________
The ThinkTank mailing List
Unsubscribe from this list here: http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.or...
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participants (3)
-
Cyclista Nicholas -
Josh Bisker -
Lauren Warbeck