Linux's Witness Ministry The Personal Web Pages of Chris X. Edwards Engineering and Technical Work

Why This Isn't Very Exciting

Well, I had some better ideas for this page. First of all, when I was at Dynamic, I was the de facto photographer. I therefore have about a zillion pictures of neat stuff from the plant. Unfortunately, all of my pictures are on another continent than I and I didn't have time to slurp them into the computer before I left them. Here is a picture of a very large boring mill that I am using to practice cutting tapered grooves.

This machine has been installed since I left. The last thing I did at Dynamic was to design a feasible arrangement for this machine. Notice that it has a pit within a lowered floor. It also extends into another bay. Other factors were the fact that there was another machine in the way that had to be moved and the building had to be modified. There were also floor reinforcing pilings that were there from a project in the distant past that had to be coordinated with new pilings. Check out the scale of this thing by looking at the step ladder!

Some History

Basically, I got hired at Dynamic to help plan machine tool installations. I had been working at Sheffield Measurement (now a division of Giddings & Lewis) and my boss there noticed that I was kind of helpful when it came to planning where big complicated things should go. Well, sort of serindipidously, two things happened almost simultaneously. First, they canceled the co-op program whereby engineering students, such as myself, could do something halfway useful and second, my boss quit.

To make a long story short, my former boss at Sheffield became my boss again at Dynamic Industries. He actually wasn't there for very long (compared to me, for example).

What is Dynamic Industries?

I could say that it is a machine shop, but that would be missing some critical information. It is true that Dynamic Industries is like an ordinary machine shop in how it operates, but what sets it apart from other machine shops is that Dynamic is capable of and specializes in working on the biggest stuff you can transport over land.

If you're not getting the idea, here's a little example. Let's say that you are a power generation equipment company. You design and manufacture things like steam turbines. These steam turbines are the size of grain silos and weigh an enormous amount. The machining specifications require that the original weldment or casting be carved up in an excruciatingly precise and accurate way. If you have such a project and you lack the capabilities to do the work yourself, you bring it to a place like Dynamic Industries.

Dynamic does machine tool components, robotics and automation equipment, power generation equipment, press components, and basically, anything huge that needs extremely accurate work done to it. Another specialty of Dynamic Industries - and a key to the fine facilities of the company itself - is an expertise in restoring old worn machinery back to its original condition. And with modern control retrofits, often a tool can be restored to better than new.

What Did I Do There?

I think that the correct answer is anything that needed to be done. I believe that my most valuable contribution (as perceived by those who paid me) was the planning and design of new installations of huge machinery. Using relatively simple (to me) computer modeling, I was able to bring a sophistication to this process that allowed some important people to sleep better at night during the construction phase.

But that hardly took all of my time. I think my next biggest perceived contribution was as the Chief Science Officer. I'm not a big Star Trek nut or anything, but this analogy is too dead on to pass up - remember when Kirk was having trouble with the Enterprise in some kind of tricky situation? Whenever there was a technical uncertainty, he'd turn to Science Officer Spock and ask something boneheaded like, "Sp..o.ck, Ar..e WE gunna......makeit..?" (Shatner's such a great actor, isn't he?) And Spock would fire back instantly, "Captain, there is a 16.853235 percent chance that this meteor shower will distract my chess game". I don't know where he came up with his significant figures, but I have to assume that Spock did give it a millisecond or so of thought.

Confused? More example - Let's say that we were working on a complicated part with lots of curvy bits. If the tolerances were strict enough, just using a skilled eyeball and the drawing wasn't going to be enough. I would often be called on to make an assessment of how a control could be made. And the follow up was often to do the check myself. And often, the questions weren't that hard for a guy of my resources. For example, I did a lot of metric to empirical.

And the fact that a lot of what I did was really easy leads us naturally to what I did MOST of the time...whatever I felt like doing. We had kind of a nice deal where they let me do whatever I wanted and in return, I'd do some neato things that only I knew THEY wanted. This really was a necessary arrangement since I was the entire technical department. I had to be my own manager. So I did, indeed, do a lot of cool stuff. I did a prodigious amount of learning. I think that's a super investment. A good example is that I learned how to deal with computer controlled machines. I was the first guy at Dynamic to really have a good handle on that aspect of it which allowed me to spread that knowledge to others.

But the thing that I did mostly when I had time to play was to design stuff and, more frequently, design and write software. My biggest accomplishments in that area are fisrt, a series of analysis programs to simplify the inspection and analysis of complicated projects. The other contribution I made was to write an entire CNC machining package for the HP48 calculator. If you're scoffing, don't worry, a lot of people do. If you instantly realize what a profound idea this is, congratulations, relatively, you're quite a bright dude.

Why Did I Leave?

Well, if I had such a good job, why did I quit? Obviously that's a great question. And first let me clarify that, indeed, my job at Dynamic was a total dream job. I had good money, good flexiblity with hours, clothes, parking my bike in my office - a 1200 square foot office! And most importantly, the guy who was my boss owned the whole deal; this totally removed any political nonsense which causes heart attacks at 40. And even more important than just working for the owner, my boss was, conservatively, brilliant. To use a tricky German grammar construction in the only time it works in English: I don't suffer fools gladly.

Ok, already! The answer...Well, when you're in a great situation, there's only one thing that can tempt you to disturb it- the prospect of a better one. There was quite a bit of tedious stuff that for most people would have been considered "job security", but I hate tedious stuff and I tended to write software or train others how to do it. This left me with more and more and more free time. I started to realize that I could pull off the greatest feat of Industrial Engineering possible: to eliminate my own job. Ya, that's right! Tell that to your next efficiency expert who's telling you how to cut costs at $100/hr. Ask him/her why they haven't automated their own functionality.

So I began to actively pursue this idea and remove any of the essential functions that I performed. It can only be positive for the company to no longer be dependant on me. I tried to encapsulate my applied expertise into software and otherwise disseminate it. I don't know if I was entirely successful, but I believe that I did leave the company a much better place than when I found it and what I took from them was roughly equal to what I gave to them.

Still didn't answer the question really, did I? The "better" prospect I had really has nothing to do with manufacturing, engineering or computer programing. I just had some neat opportunities that only get afforded to maybe 1 in 100,000. See my bike touring page if you really care.

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Chris X. Edwards ~ October 1999