The gap between exact and real world

A recent conversation with a young owner of a fabricating shop turned to a reflection of how he got started in the business. He had grown up around fabricating and had ventured off to college, where he earned a degree in manufacturing technology.

One of the most important learning aspects of his college career was an internship he did for a midsized fabricator shop, which had been purchased by a serial entrepreneur with an engineering background. The intern was soon thrust into the position of chief scheduler and job programmer.

The experiences the young fabricator gained were unrivaled. The discussions he had with his highly intelligent boss with little metal fabricating experience would prepare him for future conversations with other engineers who have never stepped foot on a fabricating shop floor.

Here’s an example of one of those early conversations:

Business owner: “Why can’t we build fixtures to ensure that these weldments meet tolerances each and every time we do the job?”

Fabricator: “When you apply heat to metal, sometimes that changes the metal and causes things to be out of tolerance.”

Business owner: “So the metal is an issue?”

Fabricator: “Yes.”

Business owner: “Then we need a new source for metal.”

Fabricator: “It’s not that simple. Steel coming from mills isn’t exact from one lot to the next.”

Eventually the business owner came to understand the fabricating world, where tolerances are not going to be as exact as those used to build a rocket. That type of perspective comes with experience.

Unfortunately, this type of experience isn’t easily duplicated in the collegiate classroom. Engineering students might learn how sheet metal is made, but they aren’t going to understand why, for the most part, the first blank you bend on a press brake isn’t going to be a perfect 90-degree bend.

I visited a fabricator in Northern California several years ago, and he regularly hosted engineering students from local colleges, even Stanford. It’s not exactly the school outreach that organizations such as the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association regularly do, but that approach does make sense. If tomorrow’s engineers can’t replicate the metal manufacturing world inside their classrooms, metal fabricators can invite them into today’s shops to learn about how stuff is really made.