Old-School O'Toole has a toothache which helps Sleuth make a lasting impression
"Jerry O'Toole has to be one of the most stubborn and pigheaded individuals who ever walked the face of the earth," grumbled Brad Smart, Manager of Parts R Us Injection Molding Operation.
"I thought you said he was one of the last of the true, uncompromising, machine shop craftsmen," Sleuth replied.
"Yes, he's that too."
Smart and Sleuth were sequestered in a small conference room, one with a big glass window overlooking a triple row of mostly state-of-the art injection molding equipment. Over to the left were small single cavity machines now making prototype medical parts that were only the figment of someone's imagination a few weeks ago. Over to the right were larger presses running multi-cavity production molds for legacy parts, many more than a decade old.
The problem was over to the right. In the slow economy, there was less demand for many of these products and Parts R Us customers were unwilling to inventory large quantities of parts that might not be used for a half-year or more. That meant shorter runs and faster turnarounds to keep customers supplied with parts on an as needed basis.
But the tooling was getting old and some customers thought they were saving money by holding off on tooling maintenance until some component actually broke. So when one broke, Old-School O'Toole would dutifully haul out the prints and study the situation.
There would be a lot to study because many changes — not all of them noted on the drawing — had been made over the years. Invariably, O'Toole would manufacture the original component and then work through all the ad hoc modifications until he had a part that would perform like the one that just broke. While all this was happening (or not happening) Parts R' Us' customers were pacing the floor wondering when their shipments would arrive.
"Listen, Sleuth," said the upstart Brad Smart, "we really like O'Toole. He's a valuable employee and knows lots of things that we would find hard to replace. I know you've tried before, but this time, if you can't convince O'Toole to modernize his approach to tooling maintenance and repair, he's history."
Soon, O'Toole, a tall, wiry short-tempered man in his late fifties stormed into the conference room where Sleuth was waiting. "I know what you want," said O'Toole, "but I won't be talking about it anytime soon. My tooth hurts too much. The crown is broken.
"They only put it in 10 years ago. But it broke. Now, I have to go for a tooth mold--then bite into all that pasty stuff-- Yuck! Then, suffer with a temporary that won't fit right until they get the permanent crown. Then, go back for the fitting. And they haven't even given me an appointment for the first part yet. So, that's that. I'm not talking. Besides— I've got molds to repair."
Sleuth couldn't believe what he was hearing and what an incredible stroke of luck it represented. He exchanged a few words with O'Toole and then departed. A little over a week later, he was back in the same conference room with Brad Smart, laying out plans for Parts R Us new computer-integrated tooling development and maintenance capabilities.
"What did you say to that O'Toole," blubbered the bewildered Smart. "Now he is leaning on me to get him this new scanning and meshing software and the equipment to run it and he wants it tomorrow if not sooner."
"In all honesty, nothing. I just got him an appointment to get his tooth fixed," said Sleuth, grinning.
"Really?"
"Really," responded Sleuth, "only this was no ordinary dentist I sent him to. It just happens that I am consultant to University Orthodontics, which has a demonstration project that allows dental professionals to observe first hand the best available technology for visualizing and manufacturing dental reconstructions. Dentists, dental surgeons and prosthesis fabricators and even OEM dental equipment manufacturers can go there and see all of these technologies in action and figure out what will work best for them.
"My friend, Dr. Osgood, was good enough to come in early Saturday morning to work on O'Toole's broken crown— he owed me a favor. Then he let O'Toole look over his shoulder while he put the job on the fast track. You can bet O'Toole was paying attention, because this was all about relieving his own pain.
"This lab is very flexible— their software allows them to go in any direction that works best. For example, some labs still prefer to work from molds, but O'Toole hates the thought of a bite mold. So, Dr. Osgood put him in the chair and digitally scanned the opposing tooth and the stump where the crown would be placed.
"Using software that featured advanced meshing algorithms, Dr. Osgood quickly transformed the point clouds data collected from the stump and opposing tooth into high quality models. The meshing step was particularly important because it allowed Osgood to produce very clean and accurate models that were immediately ready for generating the CAM (Computer Automated Manufacturing) outputs to CNC equipment. In this case, the system output was an STL file so that additive plastic processes could be used to make the crown, which was later reinforced with some advanced resin coatings to make O'Toole's tooth longer lasting.
"He did have to suffer over the weekend with a temporary crown— but Osgood got him back in early on Monday and installed the permanent crown," Sleuth concluded.
"Well that explains why O'Toole is no longer such a grouch," said Smart. "But what about his rapid change of heart on the issue of changing his approach to tooling repair?"
"Scanning the part, meshing the point cloud data, and quickly reverse engineering—which is what we have been asking O'Toole to master-- is exactly the same approach Dr. Osgood used to fix his tooth. O'Toole quickly realized that if his crown had been a regular manufactured part, the CAD/CAM output could just as easily have gone to a CNC machine to manufacture a part. I'm pretty sure he thought that if a dentist could learn how to scan and reverse engineer a tooth reconstruction, a veteran manufacturing guy could certainly learn to do the same thing to reconstruct some broken tooling and get the customers' needs met a whole lot faster."
"Or, perhaps he associated his dental problem with the pain and suffering your customers are facing waiting for their emergency tooling repairs. So, O'Toole has decided to do the compassionate thing and put them out of their misery."