Employee Operations Updates

August 17, 2026
 

Subject: First Shift Assembly Schedule Change
 

Team,

The first shift assembly schedule will change effective Monday, October 5th, 2026. This does not affect the schedules of the Fabrication or Material Handling groups at the 8700 Line Avenue location. The Fabrication team at the 5489 Campus Drive location will observe the new shift start schedule with assembly and the Lincoln team.

The new schedule will be Monday through Thursday 6:00AM – 4:30PM for assembly. This schedule was selected to continue to observe the four-day work week while reserving any overtime requirements for Friday. The Friday overtime schedule will change to 6:00AM – 2:30PM if required.

This schedule adjustment is intended to provide several benefits to both our employees and the business, including:
 

1. Fabrication/Material Handling – The Line Avenue Fabrication and Material Handling teams would continue to report at the 5AM time. This would allow an extra hour for Fabrication to complete parts and address shortages of parts unable to be completed by the prior shift. Likewise, any carts or parts unable to be pulled on 2nd shift could be completed prior to the assembly start. Water spiders are the exception to this as they directly support the assembly line.

   1. Water Spiders will observe a new staggered schedule to support assembly. Lines and areas that are supported by more than one water spider will observe the below shift hours:
   2. Water Spider 1 – 5:00AM – 3:30PM (Part Put-Away)
   3. Water Spider 2 – 6:30AM – 4:30PM (Night List)

    

2.  Assembly Bottlenecks – The new schedule allows supervisors the flexibility to bring in key areas earlier than the normal shift start time to eliminate a bottleneck in production, i.e. no work to progess to drains due to delays in cabinets from the prior day.

    

3.  Support Functions – Many of our support functions, i.e. the Sales, IT, Engineering, Purchasing groups, etc. maintain office hours that start between 7AM and 8AM as they are corresponding with many external customers and suppliers that maintain other operating schedules. The later start time would reduce the lost productivity in the event there is an issue that requires attention from those groups.

    

4.  Retention – 63% of “Days in Late” exception points over the last year originated from the first 30 minutes of the shift. The 5AM start time has proven to be a challenge for many newer employees and job candidates. The 6AM start time will improve our ability to attract and retain team members while remaining competitive with other employers in the area.

We appreciate your flexibility and continued dedication as we implement this adjustment. Please see the documents attached for details of your specific shift schedule and updated break times.

Frymaster Merco Schedule Change Effective 10 5 26

Shifts Effective 10 5 26

Assembly Break Times 10 5 26 1
 

If you have any questions, please contact your supervisor or Human Resources.
 

Thank you,
 

Kathryn Trahan Childs
Director of Operations I