Monday, October 17, 2016

Mr. Halpern episode 3

Mr. Halpern episode 3          As recalled by Mr. Bob Gumbinner

We leased space at the corner of Ashburton and Warburton, which had been a supermarket, to store rolls or stencil and other paper and to finish the paper offset plates. When the time came to move in Mr. Halpern, without any previous study came there ignored the layout which I had made and directed where he wanted things located. When we lost the lease for this building, Mr. Halpern and I looked at several buildings on Wadsworth Ave. We did rent the one on the corner of Wadsworth and Ashburton. Mr. Halpern on looking at the building next to it which had been constructed very simply hired the architect who had designed it, Joe Roth, to build the 12,000 square foot building on the 2 Ashburton Ave. When the building at 137 Alexander St. was finished, I had to leave for a week, possibly go to the German plant, when I returned instead of the orderly transfer of the stencil finishing equipment and the layout I had planned, Mr. Halpern had everything picked up and moved and the installation started. Not only was production unnecessarily interrupted but we had a poor material flow.

In another instance, Mr. Halpern added a chemical to the stencils that was supposed to increase the shelf life. It was done without my knowledge. Thereafter, operators on that line started to have eyesight issues. I investigated the situation and determined that the cause of the eyesight problem was the chemical that Halpern added. I removed it from the formulation without telling Halpern or anyone. The eyesight problems went away. It could have been a field day for the tort lawyers.