I then gave the facility manager an itemized list of what parts of the line were malfunctioning and how to fix the issues. Some were PLC timing issues, misplaced limit switches, misaligned guides, etc.

It was quite funny. The manager asked me how I determined those were problems. I told him that I watched their floor workers as they repeatedly had to fix jams and other problems that were impacting the product flow. I'm not sure what he did with the information, but about 6 weeks later we were there with several grandchildren and every single one of the problems that I had identified had been fixed.

That made up for how mad my wife was at me "wasting" an hour watching the process flow during our earlier trip. At the time, I worked developing process automation software for wood products manufacturing, paper manufacturing, specialty metal recycling, and food processing, so diagnosing their issues just seemed natural.