Jim Medding’s Blog

The first engineering assignment I was given, after my introduction to engineering change notice forms, was to create a mod procedure for rewiring the “computer” drawer of a SMTS dash 39 to a dash 51. This was something really significant and I was sure I could do it right. I had the wiring lists for both models and was told that one of the lab technicians, Ron, would help me out.

I spend hours, if not days in a room with Ron poring over the wiring lists making sure that of the more than a thousand connections in each drawer, I knew exactly which were common and which were different. Armed with this information, I wrote up the mod procedures and presented them to my boss, Larry.

Then, one day, I was called out to the production floor. When I arrived, I saw the bottom side of a computer draw turned upside down with the wires exposed. Around the draw were an assembler and two senior assemblers, Ethel and Pat. Ethel told me that my mod procedure required an operation which couldn’t be accomplished; I don’t remember specifically what it was, probably the removal of a wire that didn’t exist. Furthermore there were other problems, such as wires going to places where they shouldn’t have gone.

It was obvious to me that the dash 39 draw had not been wired per the wiring list I possessed.

What wasn’t obvious to me was what to do about it.

Let me digress for a moment and tell you a bit more about Ethel. Ethel had been with the company before they assigned employee numbers; when they did give out employee numbers, she ended up with a low two digit number because she had a last name which was near the top of the alphabetical list of employees (I had a “low” six digit employee number). I mention this because I suspect that Ethel had seen many problems like this before and she had saved many young engineers’ rear end.

Ethel, noticing my bewilderment, asked me what I was trying to accomplish. As soon as she realized that I wanted the wiring to match the dash 51, she suggested that they would go through the drawer connector pin by connector pin and make the wiring match. “You can do that?” I asked. “Sure” Ethel said, and I walked away with a deep respect for all senior assemblers. I worked for many years with Ethel and Pat; I believe we always had a good working relationship. I hope they felt the respect I had for them.

I learned something else that day which was more important in my career as an engineer. I learned to always be wary of your assumptions. This has been especially helpful when it comes to testing.