Description
Quality Assurance Technician
1. Collection of samples
- Twice per eight hour shift
- A MULE type vehicle is used to travel to the sample collection points. The total distance of travel is approximately 0.2 miles.
- Bags of samples are removed from production tables (~36 inches high) and moved to the MULE no greater than fifty feet away.
- Each bag may contain five pounds of material, and the total weight of all samples is about forty pounds.
- The technician will transport the samples from the MULE to the X-ray laboratory receiving area approximately twenty-five feet away.
- Filtration/Drying approximately twenty samples per eight hour shift
- Sample slurry containers (6 oz.) require manual mixing (like a paint can).
- The homogenous material is filtered at countertop level and transported to a drying oven about fifteen feet.
- The samples are removed from the oven and returned to the filtration area to await the grinding step.
- Grinding/pressing
- Approximately forty samples per eight hour shift
- Add sample to a tungsten grinding cup (~5 lbs.)
- Place the grinding cup into a grinding instrument.
- The technician will need to turn 180 degrees to complete this task.
- When the grinding step is complete the technician will reverse the process for each grinding cup, and place the ground material into a tin sample cup for pressing in an automatic hydraulic press.
- Each grinding cup requires washing, rinsing and drying after its use.
- Approximately twenty trips.
- The pressed samples (~ 5 grams) are introduced into the appropriate analysis equipment which is no greater than twenty feet away.
- Most of the data are transmitted from the analytical instrument.
- Some manual data entry is required and is completed at a PC.
- Computer time per eight hour shift is approximately thirty minutes.
5. Routine equipment maintenance
- Replace gas cylinder (about one each week)
- Vacuum laboratory work area each shift with a shop vacuum cleaner
6. Disposal of samples
- Waste materials are taken to a dumpster using the MULE or dolly
- Bags of materials are lifted from the MULE/dolly and placed in the dumpster.