(33) Working as a Contract Engineer (7/8)

I retired as 71-years old in 2007. I announced my intention to everybody I was working for and with, and I began to work on the text for these blogs almost immediately, without giving any thoughts to publishing. I hurried a bit expecting an offer of work, which never came (to my relief, but with a bit of disappointment as well).

I was offered a permanent position at the truck manufacturing company a few years before my retirement. The offer I politely declined for two reasons: I would lose some 30% of income, and also, I did not wish to become part of the corporate culture. Being a contractor I did not mind faults left deliberately by the management in the new vehicles, and I could tolerate the offence to my professional pride: you want your vehicles to have faults, and you are paying me for it – who am I to argue... Sitting in an airliner and watching the little ants deep below, manufacturing, managing, machining, assembling – is their system, their company culture, functioning the same as that in „my“ car companies...?

Comparing the car manufacturers from the quality of their production and products, one of them stands out, and that is Toyota. I worked for them four times, some 9 years all up, and could not help admiring the emphasis the company puts on the quality of – of everything: from quality of their administrative procedures, their methods of design, intra-company communication, relationship with suppliers, quality of individual components right down to the finished product. In my small field of electrical system design I managed to achieve at Toyota something ALL other vehicle manufacturers were vehemently refusing to accept, and that is the acceptance of my Method of Electical System Testing.

During my second or third contract at Toyota I noticed that the finished vehicles had an unusual number of electrical faults as they were leaving the production line. I managed to wangle permission to test their electrical system BEFORE the start of production quantities.

It is true that individual electrical parts are tested, certified and guaranteed by their manufacturers. The number of manufacturers is fairly large, dozens, if not hundreds of them, let’s mention some of the better known parts: lamps, instruments, radios, air conditioning systems, engine electrics, wiring harnesses, batteries, alternators, switches, sensors, etc., etc. All of these parts are tested and guaranteed individually, BUT NOT connected together as they would be in the finished product. And that kind of test I proposed to the Company, and that kind of test I was allowed to do.

At the beginning I was helped by the radio engineer Bill Wellfer, who needed to test his radios and various speakers, together with their special cables, all connected together in spatial arrangement simulating a vehicle. From the carpenters we received a table about  2 x 5 metres, and about 1 metre high. The table was located in the engineering „playground“ area, that was a large room next to the engineering department, where the engineers are able to „play“ with their parts, and which parts can be kept there for possible future references.

The first vehicle to be thus tested had a number of variations, and I decided to test all of them .- a wishful thinking! The main variations involved 4- and 6-cylinder engine; manual and automatic transmission, several different radios and speaker arrangements; six different instrument panels; two different body styles; several arrangements of electric door locks, power windows and alarm systems; several air-conditioning systems... I ended up with some six hundred of possible variations!

To make my testing as realistic as possible I needed components that were not even made, for the production drawings of, for example, the wiring were signed off only a few weeks before – I was compelled to wait. With that waiting the time for testing ended up being compressed to some 3-4 weeks, instead of the initially required 2 months minimum. For assistance I was given two students. Bill W. also lent his hand on occasions, and we eventually managed. In the middle of it all we had visitors from Japan, a large group of men, quietly watching and taking photographs, but, being busy I was unable to spare a minute of my time for talking (none of them could speak English, and my Japanese is restricted to words they might have not liked, "kamikaze", for example).

Needless to say, that the car had no electrical faults on the start of volume production, or at any time after, in the field. Probably that was the basis of my winning further contracts with Toyota in the near future, when the more refined method was very successfully employed on the Camry – shown below - which entered volume production in 2003-2004:

                    Work on this vehicle started in 2000, soon after my contract with Kenworth was so abruptly terminated. From the onset it was done with the intention of the electrical system being fully tested well before the start of volume production. After about two years I received two side-kicks, two young electrical engineers new at Toyota. Both around 30-years old, and both with some previous experience in electrical industry: Paul T. with electrical motors, and Keith B. at Nissan in South Africa. Both were very good engineers, and very good persons at that! They eventually took the final phase of the project over, and I was able to concentrate on my testing.

                    With this vehicle, due to its many variations, I ended up with some 2000 possible combinations of electrical components. Fortunately, with the delivery of first electrical components, a young engineer, Anthony B., from wiring harness manufacturer, arrived to assist. He downloaded my 2000 combinations into his computer and managed to prune them down to some 1600-1700. With every combination he prepared large sheet of paper with the list of components required for the given test, and we were ready to start with Test Number 1. Paul T., with a well-developed dramatic sense (his parents came from Greece) prepared large board with chart of progress, on which we were recording daily output, faults found, faults fixed, etc., for the benefit of our management, for which we were praised up to Toyota’s heavens!

                    As it always happens, the components we needed were not arriving according to our plans, so, instead of starting with Test No. 1 we had to start with, say, Test No. 163, followed by Test 22., followed by Test 1234, but we managed, albeit with higher effort and slightly fogged up thinking. The three months in the company of the two, sometimes up to four, engineers and friends, remain firmly etched in my memory as the highlight of my engineering carrier.

                    Needless to say, that when the car eventually entered volume production it had no electrical faults. I left Toyota at Christmas, 2003, but soon after I heard of several of them, but none of them was of our doing: wiring harness manufacturer swapped two wires in one sensitive component in such a way that it was impossible to detect with our fairly primitive way of testing, and there was danger of the wiring causing fire in the engine compartment. Also, there was problem with batteries, which tended to lose charge after sitting in cars for many weeks during shipment to Middle Eastern countries, and they had to be replaced on arrival. Both of these problems I was aware of - and predicted in writing - on my way out of Toyota but was unable to do anything about them.

                    After Toyota I worked for a few months for a high-voltage switchboard manufacturer, also on systems of electrical energy distribution for Schneider Electric, also for General Motors again on a new Isuzu-GM commercial vehicle, and, finally, for Toyota again, this time for their Service Department on the new Camry Customer Manuals. This job I was working on from the premises of Holden Special Vehicles company, when I was present at the meeting with the Metropolitan Ambulance management. That shall be described in the next – LAST – chapter.

(32) Working as a contract engineer (6/8).

A small correction: in the previous blog two names of engineers from Toyota were mentioned – incorrectly. They were not there at the time; I worked with them some two vehicles later, in 2000 – 2003.

**** and now back to the trucks I worked on in 1995 – 2000.

In 1995 our Company won a contract to design the electrical system for a few military vehicles. One of them was a multi-purpose chassis with cabin and with a Caterpillar diesel engine (one of the variations became the famous Bushmaster much later); the other was of a "jeep" type vehicle featuring a Renault engine, automatic transmission, a variety of day-and-night lamps and a platform for a variety of military shooting weapons. The design was going rather slowly for the vehicle was to be marketed around the world. Already, there were crews of engineers and mechanics from a number of countries working on it - USA, Malaysia, Israel, Australia, etc. Our Company, apart from design of the electrical system, was planning to manufacture (prototypes, initially) a number of control modules. Typical drawing of the instrument panel wiring for one of those vehicles is shown here:

    While we were busy with work and frequent travelling from our office at Croydon to Ararat (electrical systems manufacturer) and Bendigo (Australian Defence Industries) we had an offer from a truck manufacturer, Paccar Industries (Kenworth Australia).

    The company was producing trucks, from the smallest, used for special purposes, such as concrete mixer, garbage vehicle, etc., up to the largest, with their engine displacement of 19 litres. The large trucks were able to pull up to 4 trailers, fully loaded with iron ore, for example. There were several transmissions available, manual ones with up to 18 gears, and also 6-gear automatic. Engines and automatic transmissions were electronically controlled.

There were two basic types of cabins: one for the trucks with the “nose”, and the other for trucks without it. Both types of cabins were able to be extended by a “sleeper” compartment. The chassis’ length varied according to requirements. The undercarriage was from simple, one front and one rear axle, to multiple front and multiple rear axles.

  After my previous experience with batteries and alternators, and electrical systems in general, I was expecting some electrical problems – and was hit with a veritable bonanza of them!

            I was used to work around mass produced vehicles, where every electrical component is designed to the minutest detail. And not only that: the component must be tested, both mechanically and electrically, to comply with the most exact requirements. After design process is finalised the parts are evaluated by the manufacturing engineers for their suitability for mass production – how to bring them to the production line, how and where to position them, what implements are required for their handling, etc. In other words, everything must click exactly as designed and determined by the manufacturing engineers. There is hardly a shred of leeway for the production personnel.

With the trucks, and their low volume production (4 -10 trucks a day during my time there), the assembly methods were largely left to the production personnel. Design of components, and their suitability for the purpose and manufacturing was restricted to the barest minimum. Electrical compatibility of components was never looked at from the design point of view. Special components – and there were many of them – were quite often sent to the assembly line unpacked, to install in the trucks at the operators’ discretions.

  Quite often the operators had no electrical training, and if they did not understand something they were encouraged to walk into the design office to ask the electrical engineer.  Only then I understood why at Peter’s table, and from now on mine, stood a queue of several persons from the assembly floor; why his telephone kept ringing, why he kept running between his office and the assembly line: there were no drawings for the assembly to consult!

  And the time-honoured system continued on after my arrival! And what is more, I was not familiar with the details. My stock answer had to be “I am sorry, I have to find out and come and see you with the answer”. I, too, had to deal with the incessant questions, torment the telephone lines, run between my desk and the assembly line…

  A couple of weeks after my arrival I answered my telephone, and at the other end there was a driver of a cattle truck, stuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere due to a faulty starter motor. He was waiting day and night already for a mechanic to bring and install a new starter motor. The driver actually did not ring because of the starter, that he considered a done thing; he was asking about something else. After answering I asked him to ring a little later. Quickly I consulted starter motor activation in his type of truck and discovered an error in the interconnection of components. When he rang later I asked him if he was able to reshuffle some wires around the starter motor. On his answering in the affirmative I asked him to grab a pair of pliers, cut some wires around the starter motor, and re-join them in a slightly different way. When he reported success I asked him to start the engine. I heard the engine coming to life, and above the din his exuberant yodelling “it’s working, mate, it’s working!!!”. I asked him to stop the mechanic from coming with the unnecessary new starter motor and wished him safe trip.

  After this experience – and many, many similar ones, I began to adapt my old trusted electrical circuit drawing to the basic electrical system of these trucks. To this circuit I added everything I came across, new components, as and when they arrived on my desk, until the entire system was thoroughly mapped out.

  I was lucky with the arrival of a new draftsman, an old Englishman, who professed to know nothing about electricity, but was willing to learn. Thank you, Morris Freeman, you learned everything, you were devil of a worker, and I would have been lost for a long time without you!

I decided to prepare for each and every new vehicle a complete set of electrical drawings, suitable for both assembly line, and for the electricians in the field. At the same time, I insisted that the assembly line is adhering to the information in these drawings, which decision, at least initially, was not very popular. The queues at my desk, however, became shorter and shorter, until they disappeared; my telephone stopped its incessant ringing, my trips to the assembly line became rarer and rarer. The reason was simple: each visitor, each caller was told to go to the foreman’s office and consult the drawings.

From my many years spent with passenger vehicles manufacturers I was familiar with their assembly halls: spotlessly clean, well-organised, components stored in neat containers along the assembly line, operators wearing uniforms, etc. The truck assembly line looked like a large automotive repair shop, and it took quite a while for me to get my bearings. I was lucky that I managed to transfer a few line operators from the workshop into the engineering office: Tony, a Filipino, draftsman; another Tony “Gumtree”, a cyclist who rode solo the Tour the France route the previous year, technician; and German T. from Chile, a design draftsman. With these three around me I finally began to feel at home.

In the desk I inherited after the “professor” I found a Manila folder containing clippings from various regional newspapers. These clippings contained articles of various truck accidents that occurred around the country, where electrical faults were the suspected “culprits”. For example, a truck ended up far in a muddy field after “losing” all the headlamps in the middle of a bend at night; a driver forced to jump from a moving truck when flames began to shoot from the instrument panel; a truck written off after a fire destroyed the entire front end… Some articles contained dramatic pictures, too.

I concentrated on the possible causes of these accidents, from electrical point of view. After my several months behind me already, I was not surprised to discover a fair number of possible causes (= faults), and not only on trucks from the past, but also on trucks I was currently working on, truck that still had vestiges of the old electrical system in them! Therefore, apart from my work on new trucks as they were passing across my desk, I began identifying faults, correcting them, and slowly trying to implement these corrections in my work.

The word “slowly” above was used deliberately, for resistance to change is always considerable, even if the change meant correction of errors, improvement of performance and savings of cost.

For example, components suppliers are obliged to store certain number of components available for use in case of urgent need. My changes were in a large degree affecting cables and junction boxes manufactured by one company. The changes, involving components that were used on many models for many years were implemented with ease even if certain modifications to manufacturing process and tooling were involved. The first problem arose when the manufacturer asked if the components in storage should be modified as well. The answer, in my mind, was obviously yes, but due to the cost involved I had to ask my management for permission. The management decided that revisions of components in storage might indicate to the customers that the components were faulty, and somebody could sue the factory for past accidents: the components in storage remained faulty…

  I received the same reply when trying to increase output of alternators. My only success was in elimination of the smallest alternators, but even the remaining largest ones, with maximum current output of 160 Amps., were inadequate, especially in trucks with several trailers, or in trucks with many non-standard electrical components. An alternator that is forced to supply power in excess of its rating for a prolonged period of time would stop functioning, in which case the only source of electrical energy remaining are the batteries, which have a fairly limited ability to do so.

My apology for the use of simple language; more details can be found in my blog  

http://cdpl1.blogspot.com.au/2007/05/alternator-in-cars.html

  And thus, I became a knowing partner of manufacture of trucks with faulty electrical system!

Still, in the meantime, I managed to rid the trucks of a great number of less obvious faults, especially faults that did not require discussion with, or permission from, the management. For example, there were no flames shooting from the instrument panels of “my” trucks; they were not “losing” headlamps in critical moments (actually never); their batteries were not “dying”, as long as their alternators were functioning; they did not have fires in the engine compartments, or anywhere else for that matter; and many others, that I considered my “consolation prices”. Most of these improvements consisted of revisions to the fusing system, and to strict adherence to selection of cable sizes according to my old electrical circuit evaluation method, developed previously over several models of passenger vehicles, and refined for the trucks.

One of my favourite models was T300 for which I was allowed to design an entirely new electrical system:

  One of the very few important things I managed to achieve was the removal of stipulation that the users of these trucks are able to modify their electrical systems as they see fit, for the system is – it was claimed – robust enough to cope with additional headlamps, driving lamps, trailers, air conditioning systems, and so on. The system was anything but robust, and each of these additional components caused the wires to overheat and melt, fuses blowing, alternators failing, etc. The stipulation was even used as an advertising gimmick – and it was false! I was not aware of it until a year or two into my tenure, and I became aware of it under fairly dramatic circumstances.

  One day I received a severe telephone dressing-down from one owner of a large number of our trucks. According to him, each time he tries to dial a number on his newly installed telephone in his trucks (this before the mobile telephone era) his engine stops. After me he administered the same dose of dressing-down to our chief engineer, who began to monster me for endangering the sale of some 20 new trucks to the same customer.

  Afterwards, a quiet investigation revealed the obvious. My tenure coincided with introduction of new generation of diesel engines, that were electronically controlled (the previous engines had purely mechanical system of control). The new engines had a number of electronic sensors on them, their injection system was electrically activated, and the whole system was controlled by a new electronic control module. Resultantly, the trucks had a large number of additional wires, new fuses, new wiring harnesses, etc. The mechanic, installing new telephones in the irate customer’s trucks, was connecting telephones using the old time-honoured method: red wire is positive, blue wire is ignition, white wire is earth. Unfortunately for him, the red and blue wires he selected from the multitude of new wires (without consulting wiring diagram!) were serving something or other in the engine management system. Thus, when the owner dialled a number on his telephone the engine management module received a false signal and promptly shut the engine down…

  From that time on the customers were not allowed to add anything to their electrical system, or modify it, without approval by the engineering department.

  The number of vehicles produced by this company during my time was about 4 – 10 per day. If the number dropped below 4 the company had to reduce the number of operators on the assembly floor. Around the end of 1999 the number dropped to about 3. There were rumours that if the number drops to 2 the reduction of the number of operators in the engineering department will follow. And, sure enough, around mid-2000 the number dropped to 2, and a few weeks later we contractors, some 25 of us, were called to the chief engineer’s office, and dismissed on the spot.

   For me, the 5 years spent with these trucks were fairly interesting. I was able to test and perfect my method of electrical system evaluation, and also to apply it in real life; I met a number of good people, both in the design and manufacturing departments, even among the managers! For one year I was the company’s golf champion – the large Cup with my name engraved on it is still on display in the cantina, I heard. The company culture rubbed against my hair, of course. By “culture” I mean the sweeping under the carpet of the numerous faults, their resistance to change no matter how justified… That “culture” is, however, endemic in the automotive industry, and I am inclined to believe that in other industries as well.

(31) Working as a contract engineer (5/8).

    I finished at Mitsubishi in January, 1993. After a few weeks at home I received a 'phone call from Peter H., whom I met on a few occasions at meetings with suppliers for Mitsubishi; Peter used to turn up at these meetings representing some trucking company. On the 'phone I was told that he heard I was free from Mitsubishi, and would I be interested in a job as a design draftsman for KW truck where he was Chief Electrical Engineer. Having nothing else lined up I agreed. At the previous meetings I called him Professor, for everybody else was addressing him so. At KW, to my astonishment, I discovered that the nickname – as I took it to be – was true to form: on the nameplate above his desk was his full name, Prof. Dr. Eng. Peter H. Wow! I stopped calling him professor and restricted myself to the more common way of addressing him as Peter.

I started there as a draftsman in April, 1993. For work they had new computers whose brand name now escape me. Their system was somewhat different from those I used before and it took me a day or two to understand their tricks.

    The factory manufactured large trucks, mostly designed to pull trailers, one, two, up to four trailers, sometime even more. Size of these trucks can be guessed at by the size of their engines – diesels, with 8 to about 20 litres of displacement. At the time of my start Kenworth was doing away with the mechanically injected engines, and began to use engines with electronic fuel injections. That EFI system was even a bit more complicated than the one I was used to from my work on passenger vehicles previously.

    Alongside my work I could not help myself looking at these trucks from my electrical point of view. The first glance was rather surprising! I always start with the evaluation of alternator and battery sizes. A quick calculation of electrical current requirement at the common high-electrical-demand continuous operating conditions (engine working, air conditioning working, external lamps turned on, a couple of trailers behind, etc.) gave me a figure well in excess of 200 Amps. electrical current requirement. Alternators on these trucks were able to deliver between 60 and 160 Amps. electrical current maximum! A quiet inquiry with the Service Department revealed that the electrical components suffering from greatest number of failures are – alternators and batteries! Hardly surprising, for alternators fail when they are subjected to continuous demand above their rated capacity, with the battery failures following closely behind.

    Inquiring with Peter’s sidekick, a young electrical engineer N. C., confirmed to me what I suspected: that in a motor vehicle the main electrical power supplier is the battery, with the alternator serving as a battery charger only! It happens to be exactly the other way round, but I thanked him for the information, being but a general draftsman...

    As the time went by I discovered quite a number of dubious electrical things until I decided (for myself) that the electrical system in the company is in fairly incompetent hands and decided to seek contract somewhere else. As it happened, Toyota was looking for someone to assist their electrical engineer with the design of the electrical system for the car being prepared for production, and I accepted the job.

    KW people expressed disappointment: „Don’t you like it here? “. As a matter of fact I didn’t, and we parted ways amicably.

    At my new place the local electrical engineer Trevor J. quietly confided in me that he is not extremely keen on the electrical system, and could I concentrate on that while he would be doing the administrative side, that is parts list, releases, contact with the local Japanese engineers and such: nothing could be more pleasing to me than that!

I spent two periods of very pleasant time, working on two successive models of Camry:

                                      The white Toyota Camry was also marketed as GM Apollo.

    Trevor J. turned out to be a very pleasant friend and a colleague, and we managed to steer both models through all the phases of design, development and testing to a successful start of production. Very successful, except for one minor blemish: the first of the two models, the white one pictured above, had quite a few electrical problems at the start of the production. Very few – if any – were caused by our design. Majority were caused by faults in manufacture, mainly in the manufacture of wiring harnesses. In my judgment at the time, the parts, hundreds of different parts, were manufactured and tested individually by their manufacturers. The problems arose when parts from different factories were assembled together in a vehicle. We both humbly accepted the opprobrium heaped on us by the management (despite of the fact that only a tiny minority of electrical problems were our fault), and decided to invent some sort of testing of the electrical system prior to the start of production.

    With the second model our roles, Trevor’s and mine, were separated officially, and I was to a large extent on my own. Parallel with my main work I began to design some sort of electrical system testing.

    For testing I asked for a large table to be installed in the engineering department’s  storeroom. On the table I put as many standard car components as I was able: battery, engine bay electrical components, instrument panel, door locks and window motors, radios, headlamps and tail lamps, etc. All these components I connected together with wiring harnesses as they were being made available from pre-production runs. And then I started creating various situations...

    Electrically speaking, the car was not one, but several hundred of slightly different vehicles. For starters, the car came with two different engines, four- and a six-cylinder one; manual and automatic transmission; several different air conditioning systems; a number of electric windows options, door locks options and alarm system options; several different radio and speakers arrangements, to name but few. When I connected (on paper) all these different arrangements I ended up with several hundreds of tests. Despite having one colleague (radio engineer Bill W.) on hand to assist the task was beyond me. I asked for some assistance from the testing department, but was given (for some 5 weeks only) two university students, on leave from their 4th year of electrical engineering.

    Of the two, Carmen turned up to be like supercharged dragon at work: understood the task at the first glance, was ready to start interconnecting and testing almost immediately, and even, after a couple of weeks started coming up with improvements and most welcome simplifications – mind, I myself was still only wrestling with the job... Fernando (both of their parent were of Spanish origin) was a bit slower, but the three of us managed to „de-bug“ the electrical system so that the start of production happened without a hitch. Thank you, Carmen, thank you Fernando...

    I still had a few weeks of work at Toyota left on my desk when I received a surprising telephone call from Kevin D., Human Resources Manager at KW: „Charles, how much longer are you planning to stay at Toyota?“. I told him that it could be a month or two. „O. K., can you start as an electrical engineer here at KW, when you finish? “. After agreeing on the conditions and on the salary I promised to give him a ring.

    Three weeks later my desk at Toyota was clear, I reported back to Kevin, and a few days later on Monday, I reported to Gary H., the Chief Engineer at KW. He took me to the „Professor’s“ table, wished me good luck and went back to his glass office. Turning to Peter’s assistant, the electrical engineer N. C., I asked about Peter: „He left last Friday“, was the surprising answer. And what am I supposed to do, I asked? „The same as Peter, and I now have batteries and brakes“, answered N. C.

    And that was the start of my 5-years long carrier at KW...

(30) Working as a contract engineer (4/8).­­­­­

    For Nissan on their Pulsar/Astra electrical system I worked from outside, usually from a nearby office that belonged to my friends, or even from home. In my work I had nearly absolute freedom; meetings with Nissan engineers (usually Greg Hall & Ian Stanley) took place only every few weeks, or whenever I needed. My drawings were accepted almost without a word; a few little changes required were due to changes in Nissan components, or to facilitate future manufacture.

    Mitsubishi was different. They did not accept my Macintosh, nor any drawings produced thereon. They insisted on my using the drawings produced in Japan, and on changing them in pencil for revisions back in Japan.

    At the time Mitsubishi was preparing a car for export to the U. S., there were already a few prototypes undergoing tests, and my initial brief was to make sure the electrical system is without faults, for “you know how the Americans are keen on taking things to courts". The car’s American name was Diamante:

     The one pictured here stands in the second-hand car yard somewhere in America, it is about 18 years old, and still looks quite handsome for its age. I liked driving some of the prototypes, back in 1991. Its every electrical component found itself in my hands at least a hundred times…

    The car had 3-litre petrol EFI engine, four-speed automatic gearbox, and it is a front wheels drive. It had everything a compatible car of that vintage had: air conditioning, bags, theft-prevention measures, eight speakers with an additional volume-booster…

    The time allocated to me for electrical check was fairly short, some three months; I knew what to do, except I didn’t have a suitable method and had to start from the scratch.

    The main problem was with the flow of information in the Mitsubishi company. At my disposal were drawings of the electrical system, produced in Japan for all the subsidiaries around the world. The drawings contained all the components required for the same model in every country where the car was intended to be manufactured. My first job was to reduce the drawings by elimination of the components not required in the intended marked, in my case the U. S. Also I had to add to these drawings components that were not known when the drawing were being made. Marked-up copies of these drawings – some 20 of them - were then made more presentable by a draftsman and sent to Japan for corrections.

    Soon after faxes began to arrive from Japan questioning the changes. The faxes were in Japanese, translated in our office by a translator who was not familiar with the electrical terms in them. My replies were equally inelegantly translated into Japanese by her, and sent back to Japan.

    In that merry-go-round of faxes  the correct method of behaving towards the Japanese colleagues was explained to me: (allegedly) for the Japanese the word “no” in discussions is offensive. The correct method of argument is “your distinguished suggestion is correct, would you be so kind as to consider this or that as well?”. The answer from Japan to our proposal – if it ever came! – was always in the form that “the drawing so-and-so-was changed to such-and-such and we request that you change your design accordingly”. Reply in the form “thank you for your suggestion and returned herewith is the revised drawing” was not known by Mitsubishi in Japan.

    In the meantime the time was slowly running out, local suppliers were clamouring for signed production drawings, and I was wrestling with my job of checking the electrical system.

    As is the way of life in all automotive companies a new manager arrived in the electrical department. His first act was to call meeting of the department (some 6 engineers and about 10 draftsmen) to enquire how often we should call such meetings. He received no reply from us; we were not in need to have meetings, we needed a manager who would understand our work – Steve L. was not that kind of manager. I discovered it within days when I asked him for discussion about some 150 items I compiled to date during my checking of the electrical system. I was told that he is not an electrical expert (he was nothing electrical, that is), but that in a few days he is going to present himself at Mitsubishi in Japan where he could put my questions on the table.

    He went, he came back, and after a couple of days I knocked on the glass window of his office. What I heard was what I was half-expecting: he did not feel competent to discuss such deeply technical details, and what is actually wrong with them? I explained to him, as gingerly as I was able, that about one third of the items may cause short circuit, even fire, if not corrected; another third are cost saving measures, and the last third are simply drafting errors. Since I refused to sign those drawings which contained the short circuit causing items he signed them off himself…

    As an employee I used to suffer deeply from such deliberate acts; as a contractor it was only my cynicism which received a boost – if you want your car to be imperfect, who am I to argue!

    The volume production began and the car export took place with all the faults and unnecessary additional costs. Many years later I read in the press that Mitsubishi worldwide was for many years concealing problems with their cars - what a surprise...

    In the meantime new markets opened for the car, this time in Europe, and, as a result, instead of the initial 3-4 months I remained at Mitsubishi for nearly two years. I was working on models for various European countries, such as Great Britain (r. h. drive plus headlamps adjustments), Swiss (heated front seats), Swedish (daytime headlamps), German (same as Swedish except without daytime headlamps), etc., etc.

    While working on these cars, overseeing testing and revisions, I was perfecting my method of electrical system testing, which proved to be fairly handy in some of my future contracts.

(29) Working as a contract engineer (3/8).­­­­­

    TD2000 was a replica of the British sports car MGTD, with a few modern features added. The engine was Nissan 2000cc, with Electronic Fuel Injection, gear box is 5-gear manual (an automatic gearbox was also planned), rear wheels drive. The chassis was ladder-type, made of steel, body is plastic, leather seats, instruments modern with „retro“ type dials.

    The idea was born in the company called Marshall Cars in Sydney, N. S. W. Initially the car had carburetted engine, for volume production an EFI engine was selected. My job was to design the electrical system and to keep an eye on it during all phases of design, development and  production. After a few prototypes the project was acquired by another company, Geelong Agricultural in the state of Victoria. Again, after a few prototypes the project was bought by another company called Australian Classic Cars; it eventually ended up being owned by the Gasons in Ararat, Vic... . I was involved with all the various prototypes.

    Early in 1987 the great number of individual electrical components in the small space behind instrument panel forced a decision to integrate most of the components in one „black box“. The design fell to my lap, despite my virtually zero experience with either electronics or printed circuits design. With the assistance of several small companies the design was completed in about two months‘ time. As I was unable to find a manufacturer I decided to try it myself. I set up a small assembly workshop in our neighbour’s garage, and produced some 20 of „black boxes“ for the first prototypes. Most of these were „cobbled up“ from a variety of experimental parts, but most of them functioned correctly. At the end of prototype run I received a Purchase Order to produce 400 of the „black boxes“ for the anticipated production of TD2000 during the next 12 months, with some 1000 units expected to be produced annually thereafter. The Purchase Order marked the beginning of frantic activity: I had to secure supply of components from several small companies by issuing my Purchase Orders for them. I was planning to assemble the modules in my neighbour’s garage, at least initially, but I was casting around for a suitable workshop for rent. Also, I had to spend some $50,000 in purchasing of components I needed for the assembly, components such as enclosures, wiring and connectors assembly and such.

    During months of this frantic activity I failed to notice dark clouds gathering above the world’s economy; admittedly, a friendly bank manager urged me to be cautious, but I paid little notice to his fairly nebulous remarks – the lure of our first $million was too strong...

The first lightning of the ensuing financial storm hit me just at the time when I was ready to start volume production: the Purchase Order for delivery of the 400 modules was cancelled! And at the same time Machine Dynamics (an industrial robots manufacturer), where I was still managing their electrical design and assembly department, declared itself bankrupt.

    The activity which started a few months earlier in one direction, that of starting the production, repeated itself in the opposite direction – how to stop it. I had to cancel the number of Purchase Orders I issued to my suppliers; had to stop the still ongoing design of details of production; had to dismantle the little workshop in the neighbour’s garage; had to pay those few people who worked for me on subcontract at the Machine Dynamics; and had to dispose of the number of components already purchased – most of them sold at a huge loss (the time of financial crisis is ideal for buying, not for selling!)...

    As for myself, I lost my income from Machine Dynamics and was at the bottom financially – and without work! I applied for Unemployment Benefit, the meagre sum of which represented but some 20% of my income to date, and started searching for new contract. The contract came in about two months‘ time in the form of offer to work as an electrical engineer for Mitsubishi Motors in Adelaide, which offer I gladly accepted.

    Looking back I realised that I should have paid much more attention to the economic climate in the country and the world, but I have my doubts whether I would have acted any differently – who in the world is able to predict the World’s Economy Crisis (except for those who are in the position to kick it off)?

(28) Working as a contract engineer (2/8).

The electrical system of Nissan Pulsar/GM Astra had several variants. Incidentally, the Pulsar label belonged to Nissan, the Astra one to General Motors. The basic body shapes were sedan and coupe. Each of them was with, or without, the air conditioning, each with manual or automatic gearbox, each with two or four radio speakers, two or four headlamps, etc.

As soon as my work was finished (I was working from home, coming for meeting at the Nissan headquarters but once every couple of weeks), I received a telephone call from a company I never heard of before, a company called Machine Dynamics (later also Automation Dynamics). A voice was enquiring whether I would be able to design electrical system for a series of robots. My answer was „Of course I am able!“...

    The robots I knew till then were those I read about in the science-fiction literature: metallic human-like machines with a disjointed kind of movements.

    A couple of days after the telephone conversation I went to see the company, where I was taken for a tour of the factory by their boss by the name of Wheeler (or Whelan, not sure any longer). What I saw there was beyond my imagination at the time: the „robots“ were spider-like contraptions, each a couple of metres tall, moving on rails several metres above ground, each with pincer-like claws at the end of their arms. It was beyond my imagination, indeed, but I behaved as if I was working with similar machines every day.

   „What do you think?“, asked the boss. I told him that I would like to spend a day or two in their engineering department before submitting my proposal, and he agreed.

    As soon as I was free of Nissan, which was in only a few weeks, I went to sit down with one of Machine Dynamics engineers and listened to the general overview, and later next to their chief draftsman to observe his work and see how far in the contract  they were. Their contract was to produce several dozens of robots for manipulation of automotive components at Ford Motor Company.

    During that time I inspected the few robots they had at various stage of assembly, and perused a few their drawings. These were all produced by the traditional method of pencil, rulers, compasses; the graphic computers were still unheard of. Some computers were, of course, in the programmer’s office, the old IBM86 type; one of them had the first version of AutoCad installed, but it was not being used for anything.

    The robots were being designed and made for Ford Motor Company that was preparing two new vehicles for volume production. Thirty robots were destined for a sport car called SA30 (marketed as Ford Capri), and sixty robots were for assembly of Ford Falcon vehicle. Each robot was designed for a specific task, i.e. to lift, manipulate and hold in place for welding various parts of vehicles bodies.

    Each of the robots had between one and six moving arms (called axis in the trade). I regret to this day that I failed to take a photograph of at least one of them – picture is worth a thousand words...

    Each arm of these robots contained dozens of electrical components, such as motors, sensors, solenoids, and, of course, the interconnecting cables, with their own multitude of various components. Each robot had its own control panel the size of soft drinks vending machine The robots were powered from two different sources located within these controllers, 12VDC for general operation, and (about) 360AC (or DC, can’t remember) for some of the motors. And, finally, all the control panels were interconnected by cables buried in concrete channels under the factory floor. And that is the rough description of the electrical system I was required to submit my quote on.

    Their chief draftsman, an old Englishman called Norm C., unrolled for me several drawings, each containing one version of the entire electrical system. The drawings were at least a metre high, and several metres long, full of a multitude of closely-packed pencil lines. From the taped-on pieces of paper I was able to see that the initial drawing started with the paper size of about 1 x 1 metre, and additional paper sizes were being added in various directions as the draftsman was wrestling with the ever-increasing complexity of the job. Norm confided to me that it is all getting too much for him, and that he would like to leave it all and go back to the UK.

I went home, sketched from memory the most complicated robot on a piece o paper, and decided on my „computerised“ strategy. And I also decided to offer the Customer my services on the condition that I should be allowed to bring my own computer and printer to do the work.

I presumed (and later proved correct) that the electrical system of each of the control panel is similar; likewise, I presumed that the bases of each of the robots are electrically similar; and likewise with all their arms. Consequently I sketched their electrical systems on several drawings, one for the control panel, one for the base, one for the arm, with the electrical system as I imagined it to be – not exceedingly correct, but sufficient for the presentation. In the accompanying text I stressed that these drawing can be easily multiplied on the computer, and the copies modified to suit each of the panels/bases/arms.

    On presentation I was asked to demonstrate how such copying is made, and the resounding success of this presentation was the main factor for my winning the contract.

I spent some six or eight months in their design department, until all drawings were produced, inspected and approved by their chief engineer, an alert and intelligent little Englishman by the name Mike C. And I went home...

    For a few months I was working as a draftsman for a company called Flexdrive (or Collins, even Boeing, for they changed the name several times during my time there), designing and drafting a proposal for the Taiwanese navy vessel electrical system. They had a battery of IBM computers, with AutoCad software, and the job was relatively easy. However, the proposal was completed and I was sent home to wait for the reply from Taiwan (which never came in the end). I was not at home for more than a week when my old Machine Dynamics rang: your electrical system, Charles, is ready to be manufactured, and would I be interested in managing the manufacture, installation, testing and shipment to the Customer? Would I be ever!!!

    Apart from the stack of my drawings, which, after months of further development required substantial revisions, I was given an „aide“, young engineer straight from university of Paris by the name of Catherine ?, occasional help from several of the local software engineers, and a flock of electrical assemblers in the adjacent factory. There were about eight of them, men and women, permanent employees, but due to pressure from Ford we had to speed the production up, and at times I had up to about 25 operators, mostly contractors, to train, supervise and discipline (there were a couple of fistfights there during my time, mostly on the basis „I can solder joints better than you“, etc.).

    The contract lasted for about a year. During that time I kept updating my drawings in line with the changes requested by the Customer, supervised assembly of all the components, their testing and installation in the various parts of the robots, eventual disassembly, shipment and re-assembly of all the robots in the Ford factory; and, finally, instructing Ford operators on how to operate these strange new contraptions.

    During my time around these robots I was offered a new contract, this time back on cars, to design electrical system for a sports car called TD2000. Quote was not required, for the Customer, Marshall Car Company Pty Ltd, heard about me from Nissan, where they were getting an engine from for their new car. Just come, talk, and work from our office or from wherever, as long as you can deliver – most flattering and convenient arrangement.

    My work for Machine Dynamics ended quite ingloriously. Towards the end of 1987, or 1988, finalising delivery to Ford, and working on a proposal for new contract Machine Dynamics was hoping to win with another branch of Ford Motor Company, I did not receive my regular payment. A payment for myself and two electricians who were working through me as sub-contractors. The payment was behind some four or five weeks. Speaking to the chief accountant I discovered that the company had run out of money and is about to be declared bankrupt! It was days before Christmas, I had to pay off my two electricians from my own pocket, and spent a fairly miserable Christmas break at home. Over the next few months, while working on the TD2000, I attended a few creditor’s meeting, but did not get my Machine Dynamics money back – there were none left...

(27) Working as a contract engineer (1/8).

I left General Motors in 1984, planning to offer my electrical engineering services to car manufacturers. Apart from my abilities in the field of automotive electrical systems I advertised myself as (then newish in the field) „computerised operator“, brandishing sample drawings produced on my recently acquired Apple Macintosh, and printed on the Apple "dot-matrix" printer.

First few weeks of my freedom were devoted to playing with my computer. The programs I was planning to use were MacWrite, MacDraw and MacFile. Cute names, but the performance offered by them was serious and far superior to the General Motors‘ „mainframe“ Applicon computer; superior in their ability, and especially in their speed.

    I contacted several companies, but, to my surprise, my first contract came from a non-automotive company called Fred Small & Sons Pty Ltd. The company was preparing an automated line for testing of automotive engines for – General Motors, and they were looking for someone able to connect their computers with the engine's electrical system. The engine was one for the vehicle called JB Camira, for which I recently designed the entire electrical system while still working at General Motors.

    For design and production of drawings I was planning to use my computer, but they did not want to hear about it. Computers at the time were not being used by anybody as yet, and Fred Small insisted on the traditional methods of drafting using pencils, protractors, compasses and such. Money being money, I dug up my old drafting tools with no small dose of disgust and spend a nice few months in the Fred Smalls office. In the process I had to visit several times my old General Motors where I bumped into some of my old colleagues who expressed their envy at my courage to leave the secure employment in favour of contracting at my „advanced“ age of nearly 50.

When I was close to finish, I received a call from Nissan Automotive, a car manufacturer. The company was preparing for production a passenger vehicle under the name of Nissan Pulsar/Holden Astra, and would I be able to come and design the electrical system for the car. On answering in the positive I was asked to come and show them some material to demonstrate my ability, and also tell them about the time needed, and remuneration required.

For the demonstration I prepared a few sketches produced on my computer. Sketches were in the form of drawings (produced on my new „dot-matrix“ printer), showing the proposed electrical system (in the form of my electrical circuit, perfected while I was still at the GM), location of cables in the car, and rough calculations of battery/alternator performance.

    Nissan management, led by their Chief Engineer Peter Barber (an ex-GM engineer, with whom I had a few disagreements back at the GM, where he worked as a testing engineer and resented my "innovative" approach to his testing) and Chief of Design Ian Stanley, were looking incredulously at my sketches; the computer drafting being something that was only being debated by car companies at the time.

This is my first presentation drawing. This type of presentation of electrical system has not been used in the automotive industry of the time:

    Nissan answer came after few days – my offer was accepted in preference to a Yazaki*** proposal; system, timing, cost, all accepted, and when would I be able to start. I was beside myself with joy: My First Real Contract!

Much later I realised that I made my first – and greatest – mistake in my new carrier: prior to handing my proposal to the Customer I failed to perform the „due diligence“ - I failed to quietly inquire about the reasons for being asked to provide my services...

After Nissan made the decision to design and build the new car its management asked its own design department for quote – how long, how many operators, how much would the electrical design cost. The answer was about eleven months and up to ten operators. So, the management began casting around for a cheaper, and more importantly faster, option, and found me, with my answer: three months, and two operators! With that last number I cheated a bit, for I was planning to do the job entirely by myself. It annoys me to this day, for I could have quoted, say, six months and five operators, with money to match, and still could have won the contract.

The difference in time and number of operators required for the same job is a nice example of difference between classical manual and the new-fangled computerised design and drafting. In reality, the contract lasted a couple of months longer that my two months quoted initially, due to various changes requested by the customer. Still, I earned about 50% more than I would have earned at General Motors for a similar job and time. This contract helped me to establish a name which was of good use to me in hunting for future work.

Incidentally, a year after its release for production, the vehicle was branded as the "vehicle with the best electrical system" by the Royal Automotive Club of Victoria's survey.

The following is a typical drawing of the electric door locks system:

Next is the drawing of Main Wiring Harness for the same car:

*** Yazaki at the time was the largest automotive electrical components manufacturer in the world.

(26) Design draftsman’s job (6/6).

As soon as JB Camira was released a new model arrived on our desks, a VL Commodore. It was yet another completely new car, with new body, new chassis, and a new 3-litre engine with 4-speed automatic transmission. Both the engine and transmission were made in Japan by Nissan: 

Both the engine and the transmission were electronically controlled, which compelled me to start learning this, for me, an entirely new field. Our wiring contained multitude of new components, especially sockets and plugs, which was just as well, for the American Packard components were becoming hopelessly antiquated and certainly unsuitable for largely electronic system (for instance they had no moisture ingress protection).The work was fairly interesting, and I managed to bring it to the "first prototype" stage...

        One day my boss announced that as from the next day I was transferred to the computer section. My objections that I am completely ignorant of anything called computer were dismissed, "we all were in the same boat", as he put it (the year was 1983).

        The computer in question was a brand-new monster called Applicon, with 10 screens, which almost ground to a halt when all screens were being used at the same time

My general briefing was that I should concentrate on electrical design, and perhaps develop something of use for the electrical drafting and engineering sections.

After the 2-months long course I began to work on one of the 10 screens. I was given a couple of months practice before something meaningful would be expected of me. What that “meaningful” meant I was not sure, nor was anybody else. I decided to convert my hand-sketched electrical scheme into a computerised drawing. The colleagues and the bosses who came stickybeaking were told it was something I found inside the computer’s memory.

After a few months I read about a computer called Apple Macintosh 512 and went to a shop to take a look. It had a fairly small black-and-white screen, but it was unbelievably fast, and it contained a few programs which were to me very interesting. One of the programs was called MacDraft, and it was doing everything our GM graphic computer was doing, and much much more.

I left GM, bought the Macintosh, and began to work as a contract engineer. Nearly immediately I landed a contract with a small company called Fred Small and Sons, which was preparing a semi-automatic line for testing Camira engines produced by – my old GM. Subsequently I became known, and won a contract to design electrical system for Nissan Pulsar/GM Astra vehicles, after that similar contract for Toyota Camry/GM Apollo vehicles, then TD2000, Toyota again, Mitsubishi, Kenworth, Toyota… In between these automotive contracts I was working on electrical system for a line of robots for Ford, electrical switchboards – too numerous to list here, and to these I may devote a separate blog.

I spent 14 years at GM. Having come from a “communist” country I could still smell the “communist” practices, especially in the way of putting into positions of some responsibility people with no knowledge, qualification or interest in the work. Why it was thus I never enquired, only suspected that there was some degree of corruption, certainly nepotism, and all mixed with a bit of incompetence on the part of high management. That high management was probably churned the same way as us below – and good luck to them, company run like that cannot last for very long. Thank you, GM, and good bye, and vale, forever.

(25) Design draftsman’s job (5/6).

Straight after the VK model work began on another new car named JB Camira. The electrical engineer being still in the Quality Control Department the job to design the electrical system fell into my lap. Still being in full swing after the previous model I began in earnest…

The new model was yet another “new” for General Motors. New by virtue of being the first “world” car, in the sense that its various parts would be designed and manufactured by GM factory anywhere in the world. One of those parts, an instrument panel, landed on my desk already, from GM Isuzu in Japan. At first glance I saw that the electrical socket on its back was unsuitable for production, for its propensity to disconnect during vibrations, due to lack of locking mechanism. On reporting it I was told that the panel is in production in Japan already, and performing without failure. The panel was eventually installed in production vehicles, and became a source of many headaches to the car owners.

The new model was new in several ways: it was the first GM car with front wheels drive, first with 4-cylinder engine made in-house, and first with the engine located east-west. The body was also new, and it had a new electrical system as well: 

Production of sedan version began first, but I liked this shape better.

A few months after start of its production I heard that the old Swabian Otto is retiring, and now I understood why my work was being signed by him without a word of question – frankly, the old dear couldn’t give a damn…

By the way, it was only me who called him “the old Swabian”, based on a meeting I was in with him and a few of his fellow chief section engineers. I was sitting between Otto and another German, somewhere from Saxony. The two were quietly exchanging words in their native language when Otto, obviously exasperated, said something like “Weltes groses Gabe ist ein Schwabe” (a Swabian is the best gift to the world). The guy from Saxony sent back some sort of swearword which I could not understand, whereupon Otto turned red like rooster’s wattle and did not utter a word for the rest of the meeting. So, to me, he remained the Swabian, the world’s best gift. Despite some minor disagreements I remember him fondly.

After Otto, Bob Newton became the Chief Electrical engineer. With him, still in his role as lamp engineer, we designed and pushed into production rear lamps for LH Torana car, so we knew a bit about each other.

About a month after Bob N. became the Chief, my neighbour at the desk, Jack V., turns to me with the words “Congratulations, Charles!” “What to?” I asked. “Don’t you know? Go and see the announcement in the corridor”. There, on a piece of paper were the words that “effective from dot dot dot 1978 or 79 Charles Hatvani is transferred from drafting to engineering section in the function of electrical engineer.” I went to see Bob in his office: “Aaaah, finally!” said he. It transpired that the proposal for my transfer was originated by Otto, it was only finalised by Bob. My work did not change much, but I lost some money: as the draftsman I had plenty of overtimes, which was denied to the engineers.

A few months later, while still in the middle of JB Camira development, Bob N. was relocated somewhere else, and we had new boss. His name was Roger G., fresh from the USA where he studied at Stanford University, and also worked somewhere for a couple of years. He was about 30-35 years old, the son of the local GM managing director. He was presented to us by the local Chief Engineer, and assumed the seat vacated by Bob N. After a week or two we were summonsed into his office, one after another. For my interview I prepared a little list of items I was currently working on: new vehicle, new fuses – never before used in a GM car -, new wiring, new fuse/distribution box, all designed here by us…. His eyes became glazed right after the fuses; my “wiring” speech he missed completely. Instead, he announced that electricity is his weakest point; he would be more interested in how I am managing my job – any problems with the colleagues, draftsmen, mechanics? Work pressures? No? Why not? Well, I was not prepared for that sort of discussion, and he was somewhat disappointed; we parted without any cordiality. His influence on my work, and on the work of the section as a whole was zero. Soon, after a few months, he was promoted to the organisation’s stratosphere and we lost sight of him.

We were given another boss, Jeff J. He, until very recently, used to sit a few desks from me as a design draftsman on sheet metals. His contribution to the electrical section was even lesser than that of his predecessor’s…