I began my first day shadowing at Apex Tool Group with enthusiastic zeal. Not so much because I thought I should, but rather because tool making has always seemed like the job for me. There’s designing, CAD’ing, measuring, arguing with the marketing team, CNC milling, and even 3d printing; what’s not to like! As I would come to find, these were, indeed, many of the tasks a mechanical engineer at Apex Tool handles daily.
Leonora and I began our day with a tour around ATG’s distribution and design facility, located unsurprisingly in Apex, NC. We got to see the sizable development team, consisting of mechanical, electrical, and packaging engineers who all work hand-in-hand to create new tools: most recently, a tape measure. Mr. Wilson (Cecil), a mechanical engineer, led our tour and hosted me for most of the morning. He led me through the meticulous design process each product must go through when being developed, from initial artist’s renderings, to CAD mock ups, to prototypes, and eventually final products. What was most surprising to me was how much time is taken to both research current patents, and file original patents to protect the specific design of a tool. Although Cecil’s chief duty is creating 3d “CAD” models of tools, he also has to consider the technologies and patents which are involved in successfully capturing market share.
After my morning with Cecil, we went to lunch with Mr. Welch, the Sr. Director of R&D, and Leonora and her mentor Heather.
Following Lunch, I was brought to the Modeling Shop by Mr. Guillou, an Engineering Manager for ATG. The Modeling Shop is a machine shop which houses 3d printers, lathes, CNC mills, and much more. It is mainly used to produce rapid prototypes of the tools which the development team has created. Brett, a machinist in the shop, began to walk me through the process of creating a nut from scratch. While we didn’t end up machining it, we did go through the steps of precisely centering a piece of metal stock in the CNC mill, a task which is much more difficult than I would have thought. With some help from Brett, I even had the chance to move the machine around, using a dial indicator to fine tune the position. One thing that makes the task so difficult is the 0.0005″ tolerance that CNC mills posses; that’s smaller than a human hair. Hopefully, no one breathes on the machine before we get a chance to machine the nut tomorrow.
After we finished centering the metal, I got a chance to work with Scott from the testing lab. His job is to ensure that all the finished tools-which aren’t actually manufactured at this ATG location-are within tolerance. The lab has to test numerous factors for each tool, including its strength, hardness, dimensions, scratch-resistance, durability, corrosion-resistance, and even chemical composition. I was quite impressed by how thoroughly the company had to test their products. In fact, they weren’t only testing the products for their own brand reputation, but also because of standards by the ASME, a regulatory body for machine manufacturers. Tool making, as I learned today, is a meticulous process and involves many different people with many different skills.
Thank you Cecil, Mr. Welch, Mr. Guillou, Brett, and Scott, I learned a lot today! I can’t wait to see what I’ll learn tomorrow.