Is it a about money? Is it a bragging rights thing? Is it a leftover of years gone by?
Depends but possibly freight and logistics cycles.
I would think so. The sooner you can get widgets shipped out, the sooner they get distributed. 5 am is earlier than 8 am.
In that case, why wait for the next day? Start Tuesdays work on Monday and ship a whole day early.
That does happen. Most long haul freight is done overnight so that there’s less traffic and the trucks can be more efficient with time.
Short to medium haul freight needs to get the finished product from the factory to the distribution centers for the long haul freight to pick it up.
Also, most production factories are 24/7 anyway. Usually you have 5-1, 1-9, and 9-5.
If they are 12 hour shifts, so that the people can head home at 5 with everyone else. If they are 8 hour shifts, usually for the later shifts to have an okay life balance: 5-2 for day shift, 2-11 for second shift, and a third shift option that overlaps.
Even though I’m a night person, 5 is a common time to wake up for enough people who presumably want to be productive, and the benefit of getting off work before the school day ends has to be enticing. And on the second shift side of things, they get to have lunch with loved ones before going to work, and 11 is early enough that they could potentially go out for drinks or other fun before bed.
It’s also nice that for either shift, the person has time to run errands at a time when most stores are open and activity levels are low.
The machines would wear out faster with more usage, so using them longer each day wouldn’t help with that, but doing two shifts per day would increase productivity per machine than one shift per day. Which would also help pay off any loans for the machinery faster.
Often factories want to get the maximum use out of their equipment since it’s very expensive and only lasts some finite number of years. Many factories run 24 hours a day in rotating shifts to minimize the downtime of their machinery.
Hmm, that explains running more than one shift, but does not explain starting at 5 am
I used to work EMS 12 hour shifts 6-6. At one point management decided to stagger base start times. Some 6-6, others 7-7 & 8-8. So when someone flips their car and flies out at 5:45 they don’t have to wait for all the available service to finish their shift change, when the 8-8 team has 2 hours left they can get to the patient and back to base without extending their duty day too far.
Many of the workers who went 8-8 hated it. They complained nonstop about how it ruined their whole day since day shift they are headed out the door before the fam eats breakfast and get home after dinner. Same for night shift, rush through dinner or miss dinner and breakfast with the family.
Personally I enjoyed the 7-7/8-8 shifts more but enough people bitched enough they changed all but 1 base back to 6-6.
Huh. So it seems to me that when the job requires 12 hour shifts, the employees require at least one meal with their family, and the most common solution is to start early enough to let the employees make it home for dinner.
If they’re running 24hrs/day with 3 shifts, gives graveyard shift enough time to get home before their families wake up.
My old factory job was a 24h operation. Going 5-5 makes more sense than going 8-8 because managers that want to talk to both teams would rather stay until 6 than come in at 7.
