Dream Come True  

 

I had just joined in Engineering and New Product Development (EnPD as we used to call) department, almost fresh out of college (except around 3 months of experience into production which was irrelevant for this role).

 

It was like dream come true because getting the department of our choice at the beginning of career is very special.

 

Nowadays, Graduate Engineer Trainees are accommodated in the departments where there are vacant positions and mostly not as per their liking.

 

That was the first time I was introduced to how products are designed from scratch.

 

Freshers were mostly assigned smaller activities and senior team members used to work on full fledged designs.

 

That was the time when still blueprints were used for larger size drawings. I doubt whether today’s engineers know what it is.

 

After getting somewhat familiar with products and design process, I was assigned a small task by my seniors to whom we trainee engineers used to report.

 

You might be aware that any rotating machine requires balancing weight. For example, car wheel balancing.

 

Similarly, washing machine (horizontal axis) also needs balancing weights to keep it stable while spinning the drum at very high speed.

 

In earlier days, those weights were made up of cast iron which were gradually changed to concrete types due to cost and availability.

 

In consumer goods, spare parts are required for many years as long as machines keep working.

Service team had a requirement of cast iron balancing weight to fulfill need of older machines.

 

I was assigned that task to design balancing weight and that was the first design project of my career.

 

I had to design it keeping in view constraints about overall size, door opening, mounting and lock access areas etc.

 

Ideas was the 3D design software used during that time which had a very long learning curve.

Whenever I used to chop off mass to maintain overall size, it’s center of gravity used to change. It took me lot of time to figure out things.

 

Even though it was tough, due to support from my seniors I could create that design and release the manufacturing drawings.

 

In industry, if you can physically see what you design, there is no better fulfilment than that.

 

I was lucky to see that balancing weight actually manufactured after around 2 months.

 

I will always cherish that memory.

 

Do you remember your first project?

 

30 Apr 2023