Rooster's Revenge

There were postings recently on a LinkedIn tooling “professionals” group that victimized management because of unionized labor. (Disclosure: I am a former UAW member AND former management for an automotive OEM)

Unions had their place in time. This is not in dispute. The dispute is the perception of lazy, uneducated people that exponentially inflate the cost of union-made products. This is way off base and not justified.

I do not want to debate the stereotypes or the philosophy behind unions.

However, I would like to point out that the UAW did perform an invaluable service that no other entity has: bona fide apprenticeship programs for skilled trades.

The backbone of the UAW and OEMs alike have been their skilled trades workforce. The UAW created apprenticeship progams for their skilled trades that was second to none anywhere on the planet. These programs produced more talent than any other method of training or education for this type of work, including die engineering.

In my worldly travels, I can attest to the fact that there is a small group of  die engineers that are products of the UAW and can out engineer anyone in the industry in the world. They design circles around the college-educated, anti-union pundits that have a narrow view of the world and no real-world experience to back it up.

I, for one, can back it up. I have been on both sides of the equation. There are downsides to everything. I would gladly trade the union downsides for the one upside that makes a lasting difference: apprenticeship programs.

Here is a nice post about moving the tool and die industry to the internet by Jon Zemke of Concentrate Media.

http://www.concentratemedia.com/innovationnews/speedraftannarbor0052.aspx

I thought he nailed the vision. This industry needs to concentrate on restoring its competitive health by using web technologies to … well, read what Jon has to say.

There was a Fisher Body die engineering journeyman that retired about 20 years ago. His name was Joe Bono. During his retirement dinner speech, he talked quite a bit about respect. Respect to him, was more important than money. His advice to us apprentices at the time was to earn the respect of those in the die and stamping business and the money and opportunities would follow.

Respect is a hard thing to know if it is earned. It is subjective.

I finally came up with a metric to gauge whether or not I am respected when I walk into a die shop or stamping plant. I call it the F-bomb Factor.

Several years ago, I was a hired gun to solve a complex die issue for a stamper. The die was being built by a family-owned die shop in Nashville, Tennessee.

I determined the root cause and laid out the corrective action plan. Shortly after the die makers were getting started with my changes, the plant manager, a second generation die maker approached me.

He was pleased with the result. Tim (his name was Tim) impressed me to be an experienced die maker, seasoned plant manager, and professional business person.

Tim expressed his appreciation and respect for me solving an issue that had plagued his shop for three months with dropping a F-bomb about 30 seconds into our conversation.

My F-bomb Factor has two components. First, they have to drop the bomb. This is a sign of respect because the F-bomb is part of how die people talk. It is part of the shop vocabulary.

Second, the elapsed time is critical. The faster the bomb drops, the higher the respect.

If Aretha Franklin had been part of the hip hop generation, I am sure her song would have been “F-U-C-K” instead of “R-E-S-P-E-C-T“.

I had a blast living on the edge and doing a live demo in front of 130+ people for the Ann Arbor NewTech Meetup group in Ann Arbor, Michigan last night.

The audience was engaged and seemed intruigued with building a solid model of a customized tooling assembly on-the-fly in a minute or so.

We were at Chesebrough Auditorium at U of M – great facility.

I invited everyone over to my place for drinks afterwards. My place being my car parked in space #13 out back.

I had the pleasure of spending some time with my former colleauges at GM Die Engineering yesterday. As I pass through the main work area to a conference room for a meeting, I see die standards books I contributed to 18 years ago. I grin, thinking back to those days. They were good times.

I see an apprentice training manual I wrote 15 years ago. My grin widens as I recall memories from the best job I ever had: training die engineering apprentices.

My grin widens to a full-on smile as I stumble upon four legends of the game; expert die guys that I have not seen in many years.

To put the experience into perspective, in my opinion, there is more die engineering talent, knowledge, and experience at GM Die Engineering than the rest of the global industry combined.

Huddled together was Dominic, Mark, Chris, and the genuine Mark. Dominic was one of my standout apprentices. I would put him in the top five designers on the planet. This guy has chops.

Mark was an assistant trainer for one of the apprentice groups. He co-taught Dominic as a matter of fact. Rock solid designer, Mark is.

Chris and I hired into the apprenticeship program together. We are like soul mates. He is my die engineering twin. For years, we worked together day and night. Chris and I spent 100 hours a week or more for years together doing what we were best at: engineering dies. I named my first-born son after Chris’ first born son.

The genuine Mark is one of the smartest people I know. A young gun back in the day. He was the youngest apprentice trainer in the history of the program and spent two seasons with me. My son’s middle name is named after Mark’s first born son.

This is a tough business that is getting tougher by the day. It was invigorating to me to spend some time with people that are like family to me. It warmed my heart to be among legends of the game, even if it was only for a few moments.

My name is Tim Stephens. Welcome to dieguy.com, the blog for die guys by a die guy. This blog is focused providing information on technology and topics to help the tool, die, and stamping industry increase its competitive strength.