Super-Gary to the Rescue – it’s all about the people.
Tim was in a jam – he needed 12 cabinets FAST. In just 6 weeks he needed the first 5 and then the balance of 7 could follow 4 weeks later. Normally a new cabinet would take 6 – 8 weeks to engineer, build and tweak, but this needed to be reverse engineered as well. And this was no ordinary cabinet; it was stainless steel, built in 3 sections with beveled edges on the front corners. No matter how hard it would be to build, it had to be engineered fast and accurately. Was Gary, our manufacturing engineer, up to the task?
Gary came to ETM from a competitor but originally he started with Digital in their prototype lab. While he was there, he learned how to design, program and build just about any prototype that Digital needed. One of the things that impressed me the most about Gary when we interviewed him was that despitebeing an engineer he still wanted to know if he could have time on the machines! I knew he was the right guy for us, but some times you can ask too much of even your best guys.
Still Tim needed our help and Gary wanted the challenge. We agreed to take on the project and Gary agreed to work the 60 hrs/wk to get the first cabinets done. The cabinet turns out to be 8 stainless components welded into three sub-assemblies and then mounted together. There were also 23 machined parts that also needed to be reverse engineered and made. Did Tim get his cabinets on time? Yes!
Were there hick-ups along the way? Yes! It turns out that Tim wanted some improvements along with the reverse engineering work which forced him to slow down to seek approval. We also saw some opportunities to improve the assembly of the cabinet and we implemented those changes. And, we learned some things along the way (i.e., we need to wait 3 days after applying weld cleaning gel to see if there is any residual oxidation).
Tim thanked us over his shoulder as he rushed off to finish the electronic assembly at his place and his company thanked us by placing more orders. But, the real unsung hero was Gary, or rather Super-Gary, who came in early every morning and worked late every night to make sure every dimension and every bend was right the first time. Without his diligence we would have scrapped thousands of dollars of material and wasted countless hours reworking very tough angles. On tough jobs like this, Gary makes all the difference.
