CASE STUDY: Excavation Buckets Design and Manufacture
Peter Border is a qualified mechanical engineer who graduated fromthe QTech University two years ago. Peter works for Trueblood, asmall mechanical design and manufacturing company. Owner andfounder of the company is William Trueblood.
William qualified as a mechanical tradesman and saw the opportunityto build a business based on designing and manufacturing complexparts for large earthmoving equipment. The business was founded 35years ago and today employs 55 people. Trueblood Enterprisescurrently has three professional engineers, Rohan Petronis (25years of experience), Claude Weatherly (15 years of experience),and Peter. Claude is in charge of the manufacturing area whileRohan and Peter comprise the design and analysis division.
Two months ago, Trueblood Enterprises were contracted by CranbrookExcavators to design and manufacture an excavation buckets for arange of large excavators and draglines that the companymanufactures. Cranbrook Excavators is a large company with totalworldwide sales of about $2 billion (Australian). TruebloodEnterprises was elated to gain the contract as they had been tryingfor several years to secure a contract with Cranbrook Excavators.It is hoped that this initial contract will lead to further largecontracts between the two companies.
Design of the excavation buckets was undertaken by Rohan and Peter.The designed part was extremely difficult to analyse and eventuallythey adopted a design which they considered was adequate and safe,but with which they were not entirely happy. The design was donemanually without modern 3D modelling and simulation tools. Theywould have liked to have had more time to carry out furtheranalysis work, but the production area needed to get the parts intoproduction in order to meet the timelines associated with thecontract. The first batch of parts (10) has now been manufacturedand delivered and Cranbrook Enterprises has expressed theirpleasure at the way in which the contract has been fulfilled todate. The contract calls for the manufacture of a further 100 partsover the next 18 months.
The contract price for the parts is $22 000 each, and TruebloodEnterprises currently estimates that the total cost of design andmanufacture will be $18 500 each.
Although busy with other work since the finalisation of the designfor the excavation buckets, Peter has continued to ponder how theanalysis of the part could be improved. Last night he had a suddenflash of inspiration and two hours’ calculation this morning hasprovided a much improved understanding of the stress distributionwhich is likely to occur in the bucket design. On reviewing the newanalysis, Peter becomes concerned that the existing design maycreate the possibility of fatigue failure in the longer term.Further analysis leads him to the conclusion that the prematurefailure of the existing units is a distinct possibility, althoughfailure is unlikely to occur until 15,000 hours, though this needsto be further validated. The original contract specification askedfor a minimum fatigue life of 20,000 hours. Peter also does a quickestimate of the likely cost of using an improved design inmanufacturing and estimates that the cost per part will rise to $20500.
Peter discusses his findings with Rohan. Initially Rohan isreluctant to take any action whatsoever, as he considers it wouldreflect poorly on the design and analysis division, andparticularly on his inherent leadership of that area based on hisextended years of experience. When Peter presses the issue andthreatens to go directly to William Trueblood, Rohan agrees to setup a meeting between William, Peter and himself.
At the meeting, Peter presents his findings and recommends that thenew design be adopted for production, and that the parts alreadymanufactured and supplied be recalled from Cranbrook Excavators.Predictably, William Trueblood gets very upset and irate. He asksif the parts that have already been supplied are in danger ofimminent failure and Rohan says no. William Trueblood states thathis decision is that the current parts will not be recalled and theproduction process will continue to manufacture the existing designand not the new design. He says that the existing part is "safeenough" and the company cannot afford to increase the cost ofproduction. He also says that he is extremely disappointed with theperformance of Rohan and Peter, and that the design and analysisdivision needs to "get its act together or the company will have toconsider closing this division and outsourcing its design work". Healso says that if Rohan or Peter so much as blink an eyelid out ofplace in the future they will be sacked from the company!
- Identify and discuss the management, contractual and ethicalissues involved in this case. What courses of action would beappropriate for Peter to follow (starting immediately)?
- The answer should be no more than 3000 words. This is merely aguide and there is no penalty associated with this word count. Thefinal section of the main body of the report should clearlyidentify the courses of action that Peter should follow. Thissection will be a major section of the report on which technicalcontent will be judged. The conclusions reached and actionrecommended, however, will need to be supported by the argumentspresented in the previous sections of the report. This finalsection should be between 200 and 250 words in length.
- Your report should have a formal format with title page,executive summary, contents page and references. The report shouldbe word processed
