Lincoln Electric

As we reflect on our careers over time to either consider our future plans or smaller ‘next steps’ to help resolve current challenges, I find it interesting to look back on how much technology has impacted our careers. After finishing my certification in technology in the early 90s and being the first person at the college to finish my final project in AutoCAD, I saw the opportunity to get into design with a special interest in CAD systems. My design journey started as a board draftsman working on Mylar, breathing in the fumes from the neighboring blueprint machine. For those of you who wrestled with those 36x24 sheets day in and day out, I am sure that brings back some fond memories of the ‘artistic’ flair that was required to get your ideas across to the customer in time for submission with little opportunity to cut and paste a view that was poorly placed without the use of scissors or erasers. Being in the HVAC industry was not as progressive as other industries at the time; I worked my drafting machine over my 6-foot table, continually dreaming of the days I could use CAD applications.

Tirelessly pursuing management to switch over to CAD, selling it as the place to be, the future. We got the first workstation, a 286; if you can imagine, I promised to get them a return on their investment by automating parking lot lighting layouts. Through the use of LISP programming, we were able to wow management with the power of the tools and started the paradigm shift across the company, replacing drafting machines with AutoCAD workstations.

"Change processing can literally be done electronically in seconds versus days or sometimes weeks"

 Cut and paste, copy drawing, and large format printers all played a role in transforming the minds of others in the office; we were all hooked.

Moving forward to the mid-90s, a switch over to the commercial furniture and interior industry led me to design millwork for churches, U.S. labs, and courthouses. This design work came with some serious challenges with respect to 2D projection. This fueled the desire to attempt 3D in AutoCAD, wondering if it was a good idea, thinking there had to be something better than 2D. I was sent to countless seminars in the pursuit of 3D to overcome some complex design and bills of materials challenges on a tight budget. This formed the next phase of my career, transitioning to ProEngineer. This was a monumental leap for both myself and my leadership, as the use of tools like this was not only expensive but unheard of in this industry. After many long days – some good decisions and, unfortunately, some bad ones, we were able to prove that the concept had merit and could potentially be a winner, providing better graphical and textual data to the downstream stakeholders.

Taking this new found knowledge forward into the early 2000s, there was a need to fine-tune these new skills by collaborating with others experience with ProEngineer. I found a heavy equipment manufacturing company immersed in ProEngineer and its related data management PDM tool set, which at the time was called ProIntralink. This tool was introduced primarily to deal with complex collaboration across a design team and manage ‘metadata’ or custom properties attached to the geometry. What a great concept! I remember struggling with this way back in my AutoCAD days, thinking that there was a great opportunity just waiting to happen. The evolution continues; this was such an exciting time; some of the pieces were falling into place, paving a path to full interconnectivity – so we thought! We, as many of you, I am sure, were able to work with these tools and have the impression that we were on our way to a blissful uninterrupted data stream to our internal and external customers but quickly determined that we still needed custom data bridges to deal with many situations that are all part of the product delivery process - it wasn’t clear sailing. To satisfy the needs of downstream stakeholders, many companies have made numerous fragmented decisions regarding the flow of information from concept design to required data streams that form the production recipe. Working for years building custom solutions to get data in one form or another to satisfy each unique need or legacy process, I and many of my colleagues succumbed to the fact that this is the reality we must deal with. If only the systems, both hardware, and software, were powerful enough to design and realize an entire product with over 4,000 unique parts, it seemed impossible at the time but would pay dividends across the business processes if the development of these complex tools could be accelerated. A ‘master model’ for each product was the concept. We started to look into this concept, and by 2005, we had it; we were able to construct an entire machine in a single session by using lightweight reference geometry. From here, the graphic data and the metadata were almost equal; the metadata stream was invaluable. We can now take data directly from the engineering design and electronically feed it into our manufacturing MRP / ERP. Change processing can be done electronically in seconds versus days or weeks.

This past February, my eyes were opened to the ‘Virtual Twin’ generation. This concept is not new but not well-exposed across the industry. Imagine taking the benefits of the ‘master model’ to another level of interconnectivity. Imagine a cloud-based ‘master model’ for every product that rolls off the assembly line. Having the ability to look at a model that has exactly the same item versions assembled virtually as the physical product has out in the field. This gives a whole new point of reference to those who are designing, fabricating, purchasing, documenting, assembling, selling, and servicing that product. The service you can provide your customer when all you need is a product serial number from them, and your team has full visibility to everything about that product for warranty, service campaigns, and parts replacement. Now, image interconnectivity with that item so that the campaigns can be electronically triggered; as failures occur on the actual product, the ‘connected’ notifications flag the virtual models that have similar components so that product failure pandemics can be dynamically monitored, addressed, and or prevented.