Wonderful world of manufacturing

After watching some TV shows about manufacturing, such as “Modern Marvels” and “How It’s Made,” I started reminiscing about my career in manufacturing. The shows also got me thinking about the many wonders of science and industry I’ve personally been involved with.

Having been in manufacturing as long as I have, you might think I’ve grown tired of the daily grind. On the contrary, I usually can’t wait to get to work each day. I’m appreciative of all the projects I’ve worked on thanks to the companies I’ve worked for. The array of positions afforded me the opportunity to travel to facilities across our great country and Canada, as well as South Africa, Singapore, Belgium and the U.K.

In the U.S., for example, I programmed a FANUC-controlled plasma cutting gantry robot, which was used to help decommission the nuclear reactor that partially melted down in 1979 at the Three Mile Island power plant in central Pennsylvania. At the old McDonnell Douglas facility in Long Beach, Calif., I watched them extract little dings from the tail section of a plane prior to delivery to a customer. And in the deserts of Utah, I trained workers how to weld plastic pipe while a power plant was being built.

I have installed coating systems throughout the East Coast and California, trained people to use robots and coatings for dental and medical implant applications and installed and serviced robots at aerospace companies in Connecticut and Florida. When John Deere was making a comeback in the 1980s, I trained shop floor personnel to program and operate turning centers. At the time, the huge plant was like a ghost town, and I remember seeing a lone farm implement in the staging area at the end of the assembly line.

I’ve been to a heavy equipment building facility in Milwaukee and watched the assembly line produce mining equipment more than two stories tall. Also in Wisconsin, I saw a horizontal machining center that was about 50 ' wide × 200 ' long. The operator rode with the spindle head unit.

Outside of the U.S., I’ve been to the tar sands region of Alberta before many people heard of it. I trained operators there on the use of articulated robots to coat centrifuges so they would resist abrasive wear when extracting oil from the sand. I’ve been to a gear plant in St. Catharines, Ontario, and trained engineers to operate turning centers.

In South Africa, Belgium and Singapore, I trained operators to use articulated robots for thermal coating spraying. In the U.K., I was fortunate to witness the building of a North Sea oil platform. It was a work of art, standing several stories tall and completely made of stainless steel.

Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve met individuals, from shop floor associates to top management, who were knowledgeable about their work and took pride in it. I don’t regret not staying at one company for 30 years until retirement. Had I done that, I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed my career as much.

But, I don’t begrudge individuals who stay with the same company their whole career. They are intimate with their company’s products and know the nuances of how to make those products great. They have contributed in their own ways, small and large, to the manufacturing industry and to these TV shows about manufacturing that I watch and enjoy. CTE

About the Author: Mike Deren is a manufacturing engineer/project manager and a regular CTE contributor. He can be e-mailed at mderen1@wi.rr.com.