Univeristy Management of Manufacturing Facilities

[Boberoni]

Gents,

How much does the administration try to control the manufacturing processes you use?

We've been hit pretty hard in terms of productivity due to a lot of machines being removed due to what the administration calls 'improper use.' Things like fine tuning a fishmouth on a tube to better fit its mate for a good weld. Banning Hand held grinders, is on the table - The team is ready to move our machines to a teamates garage so that we can actually build something.

We are starting construction of the 2005 car's chassis in one week which is the earliest ever but with the processes they want us to use it will take a eternity.

Michigan Tech Racing's 2004 car - 445lbs wet, no driver or body work.

See you all in May,


Robert Pearson

[Boberoni]

Gents,

How much does the administration try to control the manufacturing processes you use?

We've been hit pretty hard in terms of productivity due to a lot of machines being removed due to what the administration calls 'improper use.' Things like fine tuning a fishmouth on a tube to better fit its mate for a good weld. Banning Hand held grinders, is on the table - The team is ready to move our machines to a teamates garage so that we can actually build something.

We are starting construction of the 2005 car's chassis in one week which is the earliest ever but with the processes they want us to use it will take a eternity.

Michigan Tech Racing's 2004 car - 445lbs wet, no driver or body work.

See you all in May,


Robert Pearson

[Boberoni]

I should probably read my posts prior to sending them. The Univ. machine shop has removed all grinding wheels except one used to sharpen HSS lathe tooling. You need to get a permit to use a hand grinder.

[Sam Zimmerman]

Robert,

I have heard a rumor that you guys operate on a two-year cycle where half the team builds the current car while the other half designs next year's car. Is this true?

Congrats on getting into the shop so early.

As to your question, we have no administrators trying to slow down our progress; they continually try to push it! We have no machinery in our FSAE area but we are given full access to the department's machine shop, including all CNC equipment with one condition, we must be done machining before February 1 to free the machine shop up for the senior design class. I know there are other teams who have full access to all the shop equipment in the college but there are other teams that have virtually no support.

Where does everybody else stand regarding machine shop access?

Sam Zimmerman
Vandals Racing (http://www.uidaho.edu/~racing)

[gug]

we have a nice shop with about 5 machinists in there. we are allowed to use a few hand tools etc., but no machines.
the general method is that we give the workshop drawings, and they then produce the parts for us. it has its good points, and its nice to have professionals helping out. but the major problems are that they can only do about 30% of our parts, they veto the odd thing or two and change a few designs on us, and the car is locked away in the workshop at 4:30 each afternoon, and we are not allowed to touch it until 9:30am the next day. and not at all on weekends. its all for insurance reasons, but god it is a pain in the ass.

errr, ought to make something clear here. my uni has seperate teams for each competition. its our final year design project. ill be building the car for '04. all the above is from hearing this years team moan and bitch.

anyway, when we are building the car, i think it will just have to be taken off for "nighttime marketing displays" at various workshops, and then magically come back with several new additions. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

- if it isnt coming, you need a bigger tool.

[This message was edited by gug on October 11, 2003 at 10:32 AM.]

[joeinthedark]

We have full acess of the shops exept for CNC. They are afraid that we will break them. But our team's advisor is in charge of all of the CNC machines so he will machine the part if needs be.

Also each of the team members have keys to the shop so we can go any time and work on the car. But we don't have any hand tools to use. We have to bring our own.

[Al]

Monash Uni effectively gets no workshop assistance, apart from the occasional small job when in a bind (not supposed to receive this help but the workshop staff cant resist our cries for help and regular bribery BBQ's).

We currently have to travel for half an hour each way to our two partner TAFES to manufacture components (that require lathes and mills). And only then for one afternoon a week at each. No wonder it takes eight months from the start of build to the end!!

To counter this facility shortage we create round about ways of manufacturing components. By this I mean using a jigsaw and a hammer to create box section steel uprights and that kind of thing. When there is a will (or a Bob) there is a way.

We often wish we had more workshop help (it puts huge pressure on our team members having to make things slowly using the wrong methods when we know there are machines that could do the job in a tenth of the time sitting idle just down the hall) but we have learnt much more than most by having to do it this way.

[Charlie]

We have our own Mill of good quality, our own lathe of poor quality (a new one on its way soon we hope) and a bandsaw. These are our tools and we can use them as we like.

We have basically zero access to the university machine shop because the shop foreman does not like us. They did some medial CNC work for us last year, but their timeline does not match ours well and, well, they basically don't care much about when or how we get our parts.

So we have no CNC resources except outside support, which we utilized last year quite a bit. We have additional CNC sponsors this year that will make our lives a bit easier (our drivetrain guy hand machined our diff last year, and we hand splined our axles in 01 and 02). I envy the teams who have friends at the Uni shop and especially those who can work the CNC's themselves.

-Charlie Ping
Auburn University FSAE (http://eng.auburn.edu/organizations/SAE/AUFSAE)
5th Overall Detroit 2003
? Overall Aussie 2003. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Ben Beacock]

So far, we've havent had any management issues with our shop. We took over the old agricultural shop that stopped being used about the same time we started our car last year. We ended up with the largest section, 2 very large bays wide. Other than some vices and some basic hand tools, we purchased enough to get by last year (and borrowed some).
The engineering shop has a mill, bandsaw and a few lathes but could only be run by the supervisor there (and its about a 5 min walk away).
Therefore we ended up cutting many parts with a chop saw, or hand grinders. Needless to say, we had a few cutting wheels blow up, or spit a chunk. Luckily nobody has been hurt more than a few scrapes.
We managed to get funding for a new horizontal/vertical metal bandsaw which should be here this week! We would have tried for a lathe as well but I think that is pushing the limits of management. Instead, we got funding for digital readouts on the engineering shop. I can use the lathe there now, but only after checking with the supervisor when I chuck up parts.
There is a full-on machine shop on campus, with CNC and everything but it is run by the physics department. They charge CAN$15/hour for on campus projects (including us) but it adds up fast. They have a student lathe and mill there, but because of some red tape, we haven't been able to take the 'lessons' to be able to use them yet.

Ben Beacock
Co-Manager
2004 Gryphon Racing - University of Guelph

[ethanL007]

we havent been able to secure on-campus workspace. we are currently using the garage of one of our team members. our university hansnt grasped the engineering benifits of this project yet. they still think that all of its graduates go on to research positions.

Ethan Lessard
Team Captain
UNH Precision Racing
www.domesticpc.com/fsae (http://www.domesticpc.com/fsae)

[Marc Jaxa-Rozen]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>We have full acess of the shops exept for CNC. They are afraid that we will break them. But our team's advisor is in charge of all of the CNC machines so he will machine the part if needs be.

Also each of the team members have keys to the shop so we can go any time and work on the car. But we don't have any hand tools to use. We have to bring our own.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Same here, except for the CNC part- our school has good CNC facilities but we don't really have access to them (it took about a month to get our uprights machined). As far as conventional facilities go, we have a lathe, mill and press drill in our shop. We can also use the larger machining shops and welding facilities if we need to and without supervision, which, judging from this thread, I guess we should be thankful for.

We're lucky in that regard as our school has a fairly extensive warehouse/store where we can rent whatever hand tools we need and buy 95% of our raw material at reduced cost.

It's just too bad our teachers aren't more supportive, because otherwise we probably have a great manufacturing environment for student projects.

Marc
École Nationale d'Aérotechnique

[DoItDoug]

VT has a big lab for Formula, Baja, HEVT, etc. We all have our own bays and basic hand tools, but we all share the in-lab machine and welding shops. The machine shop has three mills (one CNC) and three lathes (one CNC). Anyone can use the shop machines as long as they get the certification by taking a 2 session, 4 hour class given by the lab manager.

We get to be in the bays 24/7, but the machine and welding shops are only open from 8am-11pm. We complain all the time about the limitations, but it sounds like we've actually got a pretty sweet deal. I wish VT and other universities would realize what an opportunity this is for dedicated students and provide a little more support.

The only thing that really gets me is the disposal of past cars. For insurance reasons, we're only allowed to keep 2 cars around at any given time, so they actually make us scrap the old cars. This is soooo painful knowing that a lot of teams get to keep 10+ cars around and actually use them. What do other state schools get to do with their past cars? Any property/ownership debates?

Doug Temple
'02 VT FSAE
www.vtmotorsports.com (http://www.vtmotorsports.com)

[Brent Howard]

Wow, I wish we were able to use the shop without supervision or for longer hours. We can use teh shop (2 manual lathes and 2 mills) with supervision (4:30 am - 4:30 am with 2 1/2 hour breaks and a 1 hour lunch....so really breaks teh day up). We can get parts made on the CNC machines, but we have absolutly no power to get our parts made quickly. Last year drawings that were around in January we only recieved on the friday before we left. Oh well, this year is getting better, the machinists are on our side some, hopefuylly it will continue.

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[gug]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DoItDoug:
What do other state schools get to do with their past cars? Any property/ownership debates?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
since we make our car as a final year project, the car is owned by the university. so are all the parts and spares and every single little bit of our hard work. thats the price we pay for having access to the uni workshop.
actually, we just had one of our engines stolen off us to be used as a student demonstration engine. it was stuffed anyway (see oops gallery on imagestation (http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4289038519), a valve put striaght through the piston, broken engine mount, a bit of damage to the head as well), but we still had plans for it! im about to start the debate to get the engine back, hopefully we should be able to do some experiments with it, but we very likely wont get to keep it. thats AUD$2000 worth of parts gone. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif

- if it isnt coming, you need a bigger tool.

[ethanL007]

gug, what percent of your budget comes from the school? up to this point we have gotten nothing, and we are fighting tooth and nail to get US$1000 dollars from the ME dept. so currently we dont have any ownership issues, the car is being built almost exclusively in a basement. UNH still truly believes that all of it's engineering graduates are going into research.

Ethan Lessard
Team Captain
UNH Precision Racing
www.domesticpc.com/fsae (http://www.domesticpc.com/fsae)

[MikeWaggoner at UW]

I'm amazed by what jerks school administrations are about machine usage. When I was at Western, we had ~24 hour access to 3 lathes and Mills, 3 CNC Vertical Milling Centers (full caged 3 axis ones [one with a 4 axis head], not the 2 axis crap), and more than adequate space to work in. A lot of the V8 project and other ambitious WWU projects arose from that (as well as WONDERFUL support from faculty).
I'm now at the UW, and the administration is reasonable but not as nice. They allow us 24 hour access to the shop with lengthly certification processes (for one supervisory person). They also don't allow us to use the 3 axis mill without direct supervision.
I suppose part of the change in ethos was that WWU was a tech school, where they valued technical skills and making things. The UW is a research institution where theoretical knowledge is more valued. There's also Dr. Seal at WWU who built the program from the ground up, who believes that you learn more from doing something than reading about it.
There's a huge mistake in the error of thought in the way machines are valued. A machine's value comes from its output; many people see it as the machine's condition. Machines at WWU got broken, but were continuously in use. The 3-axis at the UW is in like-new condition, but its average monthly part count is in the single digits. They used to let people use it until a small hole were put into the table and vice.

[EliseS2]

Basiclly we have full run of our facilities. There are a couple reasons. First the machinists love us. We clean up after ourselves and many times after them. We rarely break equipment. Second I do not think many people even know what we do. They know we make a car, but they must assume we can magiclly make parts appear. Third, you do not really need permision when you have keys!

We have full acsess to our uni's machine shop. We have a vertical mill from the sixties and a lathe from the 50's. We also have the vintage section of a lathe from the 20's and another from the 40's. A bandsaw, drill press, and some handtools are also there. We also have "access" to a tig welder, ohhh ahhh, it is about three blocks away. Our room is about ten feet from the machine shop, its not even a halway we just cut through the loading dock, the man only sees us when we emerge to steal from the SOBE machine.

We have really full access, which is a gift. I just wish we had more modern equipment that was not so tempramental. I can also dream of CNC, but we get by. You would be amazed at how accurate you can make a part with three people on a manual three axis mill with a metradome.

[Boberoni]

It sounds like we don't have it to bad in terms of machine access. A few years back a dedicated team member worked very hard to acquire a HASS Vertical CNC mill. It is available for use, university wide yet we pay $2000 per year as a team to use it ourselves.

The worst is that we have always had a good rap with the union machinists on campus, but now that the university has hired a training specialist all hell has breaking loose. The guy's skills aren't adequate but whenever we complain we get told we don't know what we're talking about. He once nearly took a students head off with a large chunk of aluminum that he was cutting with a skill saw that broke free and launched across the shop.

Here is a quote from the school paper from the associate dean:

'When asked about the differences of opinion in shop procedure between the automotive teams and enterprise staff, Sorby said, "Twenty year old kids think they're invincible, but we know that's not true."'

As Racing fans, and enthusiast we all know the dangers involved. We are all consciences and do what we feel is best for getting our work done, with what we have. It's really frustrating to have administrators cut the programs and their students down.

I can't think of situation where the student shouldn't be treated like anything less then a paying customer.

- I think I better stop ranting.

[Sam Zimmerman]

Wow, after reading all of this I'd better not gloat about the new 4 axis CNC mill we can use whenever we need it, providing some other group isn't using it. We also have a modest vehicle storage area but it is right next door to the machine shop with all that wonderful equiptment. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Sam Zimmerman
Vandals Racing (http://www.uidaho.edu/~racing)

[Boberoni]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sam Zimmerman:

I have heard a rumor that you guys operate on a two-year cycle where half the team builds the current car while the other half designs next year's car. Is this true?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sam,

It has been our intention to design a car on the two year design cycle. This is the first year we managed to start such a cycle but only because we failed to get a car done for the silverdome this past may.

Michigan Tech started a program three years ago called the engineering enterprise program. It basically spreads senior design credit over three years so that you can get credit for working on the car. The only problem is a lot of people believe they only need to put in a few hours a week to get a good grade. The result is a team of 40 students with only six or seven who actually care how well we do.

If a team can't agree to the same warpath the'll certainly fail.

[gug]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ethanL007:
gug, what percent of your budget comes from the school?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

this years team (of 14 people) got AUD$7500 cash from the engineering department. which we would be entitled to if we were building a fancy eggbeater. each student gets given a budget to do their final year project, and since we have 20 people in our team designing this car as their final year project, we should get AUD$10000. i think... i really should talk it out with the department, instead of running off rumours from other team-members...

anyway, definetly not a paltry amount. and considering that 1/3 of our final year course is the car, we do actually get a better deal than many teams.

some days i can be a spoiled little brat. i have a real problem with people telling me what to do just because they hold a position amoungst university management. which is why i make bitchy comments on here.

lucky i got picked general manager of our team, hey? that means that no1 in my team tells me what to do at least... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

anyway, we have plans to get around all the uni workshop bullshit. inbetween our team members, we have the keys to about 3 seperate workshops. so the car will be dissapearing for extended "marketing displays"... but a solution to only having about 5 & 1/2 hours access per day (only on weekdays) has to be found. this years team has been dodging security gaurds, cameras and alarm systems to break into the workshop late at night. then they would cover all the windows with black cardboard and try and work all night long. that fell through when the workshop manager realised they were stuffing a door latch with gladwrap, so it wouldnt close. now security gaurds come through at 4:30pm to kick them out. i think they are currently planning to break the roller door (im pretty sure my supervisor doesnt get on these forums... i really hope he doesnt... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif ), but they are skating on thin ice since their original break in technique was discovered.

- if it isnt coming, you need a bigger tool.

[fsae_alum]

Here we go...the story of all stories. When we were building our car in 01 and 02, we got no support from the university. I shouldn't say that. It was more of a case of they didn't really care. Anyways, we weren't allowed to use any of the mills (2) or lathes (2), but the machinist had a tendency to upon occassion (we feel intentionally) to leave the power unlocked and therefore we would use them anyways. I know...not a good move, but how else are you going to build a car? As the comeptition crept closer and closer it came to the point that we just picked the lock and used the machines EVERY night. We couldn't get parts made any other way because the machinist didn't/wouldn't make any parts for us. He found it more interesting to sit and look at German porn all day. I fully agree that the machines values are measured in their output, and this case, the machines had a value of zero until we used them. They had been there for 10 years and still had the wax on them. Anyways, in order to do any CNC we, had to go to another school accross town who made our 5 CNC aluminum bulkheads for us with no problems whatsoever. They also let us have free usage of their 8 Bridgeports and 12 lathes as long as the machinist was there. Mind you, we weren't even students there!!! Our sponsors saw it more beneficial to the students at OUR university send money to THAT school than to ours!

Anyways, it all came to a head with using the machines after hours when our university machinist pitched a fit. So we came clean, hoping that they'd see where our efforts had taken the university and the publicity we had given them in the local papers and TV was invaluable. Instead, they restricted our access to the shop to M-F 8-5 and NO usage of the machines. They even began outlawing hand held grinders, welders, (but not cutting torches??), pretty much anything electrical. When Christmas break came around, they completely denied us access to the shop. Even as the Spring semester rolled around, they denied us access to the shop. Finally, the faculty advisor (who was also in charge of the shop, and BTW thought that ANY construction was useless and that we shoud be selling cookies on campus instead of FSAE) gave us a key to the shop. He said "If anybody drives by, you have to turn off the lights and hide. If you get caught, I don't know anything about how you got the key...okay?" We still couldn't use any of the machines, AND we had to make it look like we'd never been in there every night so the machinist wouldn't say something. Well, now that progress had slowed to the pace of tar running downhill, we packed up everything that was ours and moved off campus to some space that a sponsor donated (along with a Bridgeport with DRO). Being that we paid for EVERYTHING with an OFF-CAMPUS bank account, with NO funding whatsoever from the university, ALL private donations, we saw no problem with it. Well, our faculty advisor did...as a result we dismissed him as our faculty advisor and replaced him with one from the business building...a business lawyer who loved racing. By doing that, it got rid of the conflict of interest that so many faculty advisors have. That being done, our former faculty advisor threatned to have us all arrested for theft. When we informed him that the property was ours and that it was not on ANY university inventory logs, and that we have receipts for it ALL, showing that it was purchased with a private account. He still pushed it. We stood our ground and it nobody got anywhere. Needless to say, ALL of our sponsors were EXTREMELY upset with the university and their stand on the whole ordeal. They took it to the university president and as a result, it has potentially cost them MILLIONS in grant dollars from our biggest sponsor. It was also interesting to hear the Chairman of the Board of Directors of a 150 million dollar global company call the dean and the president of the university and give them an earful. After the 01/02 team graduated/moved on, the new team decided to move back to campus. The former faculty advisor is now the assistant dept head. Imagine how much support the team is getting now!!! Moral of the story... university is all politics and you must choose your battles wisely.

On a side note, our 95/96 team went through the SAME thing with the same faculty advisor. When it came time to put the university name on the side of the car, they were so pissed off they choose to put the now infamouns words of "In Spite Of" in front of the university name. The judges still remembered that 7 years later at the comeptition!!! Now THAT's publicity.

Oh how I wished I would have gone to UTA or Leeds....

In spite of...

[Ben Beacock]

gug:
MIT guide to Lockpicking (http://www.lysator.liu.se/mit-guide/mit-guide.html)

I used to make $5 every time someone locked their keys in their dorm room.

"it wasn't locked, so I just went in"

[Steve Yao]

We are pretty well supported by the department. Including free access to the student machine shop(using our own tooling), and a CNC mill.

One of the faculty is very gungho about acquiring tools for student to learn to use before they go seeking jobs. He got the CNC mill donated, along with a huge precision grinding machine that sits in its crate on the loading dock since the department does not have space for it. We are in the process of getting a couple CNC lathes as well. I bring this up not to gloat but to illustrate that these companies specify their machines to within millionths and when they get a few millionths off they crate em up and put it in a warehouse. You might just get lucky and get em to move it to your shop instead of the warehouse...

-Steve Yao

[clausen]

I can empathise with those who's uni's think that they're preparing us for research, not real jobs http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

I get that feeling through other places as well as FSAE

Regards

Paul Clausen
Uni of Adelaide