Our engineering staff consisted of several Project Engineers, and a few Electrical Engineers. These electrical types would also be responsible for any software that needed to be done. Sometimes we had to hire outside help for the software part of the job, depending on its complexity. The Project Engineers were mainly mechanical type people, and usually had no real experience in circuitry design (although most understood the basics).

The first step in any project was to have a sit-down meeting with all the participants including the Project Engineer assigned to the job, the sales people, electrical engineering, and our CEO, Craig Barrett. Copies of the quote were compared with the customer purchase order, to make sure nothing was missing. At this point the assigned Project Engineer was given his customer contact information so he could introduce himself; usually an email would suffice, although on larger projects, there may be some travel requirements to meet face-to-face. To keep the customer informed, we usually would send pictures once a month to show progress. Most of the time this would satisfy the requirements, although they may also visit our plant from time to time.

Our automotive customers usually had very specific standards that we had to base our quote on; these might include brands of electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic or lubrication items we had to use. Sometimes, the same customer had different standards depending on where their particular factory was located (I.E. a Ford specification for Dearborn may be different than one for a Ford plant in Los Angeles). Usually these items were covered under “additional charges” on our quote, but sometimes they turned out to be surprises to us. To explain: we usually had only one person quoting a job, and many quotes for them to go thru. So it was virtually impossible to review some of these “Customer Specifications” in any great detail (some of these specs were many pages long, and covered all sorts of items). Things were missed in the initial quote, and when we received the purchase order, one of the first things the Project Engineer would do was to review the Customer Specifications again. Quite often he would uncover a few questionable items; we would discuss these internally, and our salesperson might go back to the customer to try and get some additional money. Sometimes this would work; sometimes the customer might waive the particular item on this project; but most of the time, because the purchase order was already issued, and we had accepted it, we were held accountable to supply it.

When the machinery was delivered to us, our shop floor people would unload it and place it on the floor. The project engineer would usually have some time to look it over before the disassembly process was started. Hopefully, by this time we would know the scope of the project, so any of the components that would not be reused could be put to one side (if the customer wanted them back), or discarded (if they did not).

As a company we relied on our local machine shops to work with us financially as our work load varied; this arrangement was beneficial to both parties. Because we did not have “Deep Pockets” like the bigger shops, we might ask our suppliers to extend credit as the situation demanded. Most did this where they could, extending billing dates beyond the normal 30 days. But some of the smaller outfits just couldn’t afford to; we didn’t write them off as a source, just tried to go elsewhere for our parts. In the end, all our local vendors were paid as soon as we had a successful runoff with our customer. After all, we needed these folks down the line when more work came in.

Most of our quotes contained a clause for a “down payment” upon awarding of the contract. But some customers would not advance monies to us as their company policy. It was up to us to accept this or not; many times, because we were low on work, we would accept a job with no up-front money. This is where it became extremely important to complete the job quickly so as to not alienate our local suppliers. Unfortunately, we usually ended up with hard feelings somewhere, and possibly loosing a valuable supplier.

Our mechanics were supplied with work clothes with personal nametags. These would be exchanged each week for clean ones, an ongoing cycle. Shop rags were also supplied, the familiar orange cloth squares that were used in all the shops. These also were exchanged every week for clean ones. Machine rebuilding is a dirty, nasty job. Sometimes the incoming machines would be steam cleaned by the customer before they were shipped to us, but not always. Putty knives were the preferred tool of choice to scrape off the majority of grease and sludge, which was put into 55 gallon drums for disposal. This was an “additional charge” item that we billed to the customer, as we had to pay for its disposal (sometimes the customer would opt to have these filled drums shipped back to them with the finished machine). We had a heated dip tank that could accommodate the larger machine parts, but certainly not any beds or bases. Those had to be steam cleaned over a grated pit in the floor; any residue would drop into the pit, where it was later extracted and drummed up. When the heater in the dip tank was used overnight, a fog would greet us in the morning, the result of vapors from the alkaline solution. We would have to turn on the extractor fan in the paint booth to clear the air. I’m sure that was not healthy for anyone.

Most of the time we used a two-part epoxy paint on the machinery, with the colors varying from customer to customer. Usually it was a standard machine tool gray, with OSHA orange used on guards that covered moving parts (like vee belt drives). A lot of the machinery we rebuilt predated any OSHA regulations, so we would have to design guarding that would pass those rules. This also might involve mounting interlocking electrical safety switches so the machine would not run with the guards removed.