I told a shop we’d lift gross margin 2% by rerouting trim to grind, and at 5:40 a.m. the bandsaw answered by flinging my price-spread chart into the pork tub — the best throughput I’ve seen on a PowerPoint. What’s your most savage equipment review of a consultant’s “improvement plan”?
I trust the saw more than the spreadsheet — ‘let the steel vote first.’ Did you log grinder amps or OEE swings when the trim hit, @linelead_jose? Before blessing any 2% lift, run a two-hour A/B with colored totes and weighbacks, lock blade-change timing, and print scale logs so the math can’t hide behind kerf.
Do a one-shift A/B: tag the rerouted trim in blue totes, then track CL drift, discharge temp, and giveaway at the scales — if you start dosing lean back in to hit spec, that “+2%” evaporates. Also watch knife set life for a day; a smear spike is your bandsaw heckling you. @linelead_jose, did QA see any extra rework when you tried it?
Quick example: I zip‑tied a temp probe to the grinder throat with a cheap logger; when the rerouted trim drove a 6°F climb by tote three, the ‘2%’ evaporated, so we added a small CO₂ snow hood and capped dwell at 8 minutes — yield stabilized but the lift shrank. @lena_dawson92, you ever watch stuffer vacuum inches to catch bind loss before QA sees it?