Engineers and a Constitutional Amendment

[Southside]

I think it's well past the time we here in the states push for a Constitutional Amendment.  One that says something along the line that "any engineer who designs a mechanical piece of equipment that goes into production MUST personally remove each and every component and bolt from said equipment, and then return the equipment to operating status, using nothing more than readily available hand tools, with footing in soggy soil, in the woods, while getting paid the rate of a self employed small business owner, (ie - no production = no pay)". 

Calling a violation of this amendment "High Crimes against the State" will likely help in addressing the issues we face daily of absurd engineering failures where one has to rig a safety harness from the ROPS cage so that you can hang upside down into the engine bay just to remove one stupid 10mm, 12 point bolt that is guarded by several cast iron chunks on an engine block which serve no purpose other than to painstakingly remove knuckle skin one layer at at time.  Of course these iron chunks are guarded by no less than 15 hydraulic hoses, none of which can be produced with 1/16" of slack so that they would actually push out the way without having to basically do a complete fluid drain just to remove a starter.

[Skeans1]

NOTR FROM ADMIN. UNNECESSARY QUOTE REMOVED!

Should we ask what machine brought this on?

[Southside]

Today it was the buncher, usually a very reliable machine, this was more of a general rant about how equipment is built these days.  I can remember crawling into the engine bay of my first pickup to work on things - you could practically set a lawn chair in there back then. 

[Skeans1]

NO NEED TO QUOTE THE POST IMMEDIATLY BEFORE YOURS THIS ONE REMOVED AS WELL
Some of the worst I've had to work on are a 653 on the engine or swing drive it's fun right under the boom down in a sweet hole, you're lucky if you just bust one knuckle and not blow a nut out.

[Corley5]

Injector pump on a JD 6068D in a Fabtek 133 was a real treat made even more special with day time temps in the single digits to low teens. 

[mike_belben]

I have accumulated about 50-60 yrs of first hand anecdotal history at a major american manufacturer from my employment there.  CAD/CAM/solidworks is whats really reaponsible for the changes at all manufacturers. 

Every thing has historically kinda been built off the last thing.  The model T didnt look alien from the model A right?  So initially joe inventor whips something up and then revisions take place from there.  Version 1, 2, 3.  Rarely are redesigns completely radical because theyll have a whole new slew of bugs and need updates of their own.  Mechanics/craftsman/machinists and repairmen also had a lot more feedback that made into engineering revisions.  They worked a lot closer and it was machine shop who often said "hey, we dont have clearance in here for a wrench. This isnt gonna work. Have the draftsman change dimension xyz."

Who was typically an engineer at the company?  A guy who might have started in assembly, then went to machine repair or machine shop, then into engineering.  He had the full picture.  It was a long road to the top of engineering in companies that used to develop employees over a lifetime.

The proliferation of rows and rows of cnc cells hooked up to networks that go straight to engineerings computer, coupled with the replacement of draftsmen and hand programming by cad/cam software that spits out a Gcode toolpath based on etchasketch lines a 20 yr old new hire in engineering fillets and radiuses out then anchors and skews and 3Ds and cutaways and attaches to coincident planes then "checks fit" in the program before exporting the DXF file to the entire cell of machines to run the part.. Is what happened. 

The guys who wore coveralls, had toolboxes down in the garage and smelled like cigarettes and boraxo used to influence the design.  Now its the college kids behind screens who wear slacks and leather shoes and delegate rework to fix their bad designs to the boraxo bunch. 

The bigwigs used to walk down to the machine shop to see how far along the new product lines development is.  Theyd see parts on a greasy jig table and chips all over the floor. Now they swipe a badge and enter a climate controlled cubicle farm, walk past the keurig corner and find whoever they need in soft voices on carpeted floor.   The machinists and repairmen dont know the big wigs anymore because that 6 figure office staff has such high turnover and only brings in frat buddies from the outside these days so they have much less weight in getting the computer kids to make changes and admit faults. 

Im not saying its like that everywhere, but once i picked up on it where i worked i started hearing it was just the same everywhere else over the years.  You need years of classroom education to really utilize the full extent of software these days. so waves of youngsters who started in college instead of 5 years out on a logging crew or in a truck or equipment repair shop first, end up designing the parts.  I knew about 40 of them well enough to say they didnt fix their own cars.

Its a culture change.

[bugpeople]

spot on, sir.

I have a buddy who's a retired ASE mechanic and former Air Force engine mechanic. The guy is a walking encyclopedia on everything cars related. You give him a part and not only can he identify it, he can tell you all about the changes that led to the current design of the part, it's failure points, what they'll probably do next, etc., etc.

I went over to see him one day and he had the head pulled off a 2003 Camry. He pointed out how they are making motors cheaper and cheaper- they don't even pour the cylinders with the motor anymore- they install and weld in the cylinder sleeves after they pour the motor. He stopped working on newer cars because he says they are all designed by computer now- not even by the engineers. Where it's all going is pretty scary- he says the engineers designing the cars these days let the computer do all the work. In fact, he's an instructor at a local tech university, and the kids he's trained don't even know how to use calipers and such. He says it's unbelievable how much they don't know about physics and mechanics, stress and heat failures, etc., etc. He foresees a point where not only will the designs these computers are spitting out not make any sense, but to fix them will require other machines- humans won't be able to fix them anymore.  And it won't make sense economically to fix them- they now design cars around an economic model of surviving to the 100k mile warranty, and after that- poof, and straight to a junkyard. We're really at the cusp of not being able to understand the designs the computers are giving us. I think it's scary how disconnected we are becoming from -- well, the Earth, really. Kids think milk comes from the store, hamburger meat comes from McDonalds; don't even ask them to tell you how cell phones work.

Based on that, I went and bought a 1979 F150, with very few electronic parts. The way that motor is put together is just genius, compared to my 1995 toyota pickup. I fix all my own vehicles- just put a clutch in the ford, replacing a motor in my toyota this week. It's getting scary where we're headed as a society.

[GAB]

A computer is a tool.
Garbage in = garbage out.

There is book learning and then there is hands on experience. 
There is a world of difference between the two.

Having grown up on a dairy farm and also having a BSME I can vouch for what MB wrote.
Gerald

[wannaergo]

I agree!! We ran into that with our cat 501. There is a fuel line on the cat C6 engine that rubs against a breather tube and pops on every 501 that I've ever encountered. The fuel line itself is a real pain in the neck to change too. It took me 5 hours of hugging the top of the engine trying to blindly line up the fittings. There was a lot of instances like that with that Machine. Poor planning and engineering that led to virtually inaccessible things broken.

[Skeans1]

THIS TOPIC IS NOW ONLY HALF AS LONG AS IT WAS
Remember that machine was designed to have a Deere engine in it not a cat which could be some of the issues.

[Skeans1]

Engineers need to remember one word KISS and none of them follow it.

[mike_belben]

Having grown up on a dairy farm and also having a BSME I can vouch for what MB wrote.
Gerald

The farm is a great point.  The death of farms throughout most of america also coincides with the proliferation of computers and the trend of womb>highschool>college>career with little chance to actually acquire experience or common sense.  60
or 70 yrs ago every kid either lived or worked on a farm or worked in a factory or mine or some sort of manual labor harvest type operation.. Or went off to a war.  Yer gonna learn a lot of practical problem solving in those circumstances.  I dont blame todays kids, theyre coddled right into adulthood.   

[petefrom bearswamp]

Sure the days of working on your car engine and only needing a 1/2, 9/16 and 5/8 wrenches and a slotted and phillips screwdriver are gone
But, the engines in todays cars do not need a valve job at 30 thousand or so and a complete overhaul at 60 or 70 thousand miles.
I agree that hands on experience is invaluable and all of the above points have validity.
I'll still take my computer designed Camry and GMC pickup over my 1948 chevy (my first car) and my 1965 Falcon ranchero for reliability.
When I was an apprentice draftsman at ALCO (American Locomotive Co.) in the 50s we were sent to the erecting floor to get hands on experience.
The floor guys were great and while we didnt turn many wrenches or run filets of weld the experience was eye opening.

[mike_belben]

I have a beautiful skidsteer fork attachment.  It curls down well past vertical when you "dump the bucket" but on flat ground it curls back to about 5 degrees max. 

Why?  Because the kid behind the screen never had to pick up logs with a bobcat while facing downhill.  Its great if you like chasing logs down into the swamp.  Market is flooded with this product.