Bus tales not all tall stories
Dr Peter Campbell was named Victoria's Young Manufacturer of the Year for 2007 at a Hall of Fame Gala Dinner in Melbourne on Monday 28th May.
"Pete completed a combined undergraduate Engineering/Economics degree here (gaining Honours in both), and then did a PhD with me under the Stamping Technology in Automotive Manufacturing Processes Centre with Ford," said Professor Michael Cardew-Hall, Deputy Dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science.
"I'm sure that everyone in the College, and all those who worked and studied with Pete, joins me in congratulating him on winning the award," he said.Dr Campbell has worked as improvement manager at Volgren Australia in Hammond Road, Dandenong, for the past two years.
In that role he works to improve the manufacturing processes at Volgren, a company that is Australia's largest manufacturer of bus bodies.
And while the bus industry is booming, Dr Campbell's job is far from easy.
"We have a current situation where the bus market is going crazy," he said.
"I am trying to work out ways to satisfy demand and while it is easy to ramp up production, we have to be mindful that the bus industry goes through a period of growth before returning to a base rate.
"I have to make sure we are capable of ramping back down."
Dr Campbell said his career in manufacturing was not planned. He instead fell into it after studying for 12 years at university.
"When I graduated from my undergraduate studies I ended up getting a postgraduate job working with Ford, The Australian National University and Deakin University in the Stamping Technology in Automotive Manufacturing Processes research group, and that got me into manufacturing.
"It was never planned but I certainly enjoy what I do.
"I am very lucky to do a job day-in, day-out, that I absolutely love."
Dr Campbell said the greatest satisfaction came from seeing shop floor staff implement improvements with his encouragement.
"I teach them how to (improve processes), give them the tools and resources to do it, and get the hell out of the way," he said with a laugh. "As a result there have been massive changes in certain areas and it is satisfying to see the guys on the floor take ownership of their improvements."
Dr Campbell gave an example of one employee's ability to reduce the time it takes to produce a bus chassis which was triggered by improved knowledge and empowerment.
"One of our employees, Kevin 'Spider' Smith reduced the cycle time in chassis production by more than 30 per cent over a six-month period," Dr Campbell said.
"In the past all the chassis steelwork was built "on-the-job" using a multitude of clamps, levels, straight edges, measurements and constant reference to engineering drawings. 'Spider' stood on the shop floor and watched his best guy at work. He would walk backwards and forwards between the job and the drawing, checking dimensions, fetching steel, measuring, clamping, re-checking, re-clamping, re-measuring etc.
"Spider recognised that most of this process was a waste. His team built jigs so that the steel modules could be built off-line, quickly, accurately and ergonomically, with minimal reference to drawings and with minimal need for measurement. This removed a lot of waste and significantly compressed the cycle time. Dropping completed modules onto the chassis enables us to do what was a 10-day chassis build, in six and half days and we have plans to go even faster.
"That is just one example of numerous improvements from the shop floor."
Dr Campbell is modest about his role in this saying it is 'just to educate and facilitate' and that Spider and his team came up with the solution and did all the work.
But the bigger picture is giving employees the support and encouragement that gives Australia's manufacturing industries a competitive edge.
"Everybody needs to make improvements every day in industry so that Australian industry remains world-class. Spider's team is one of many in my company that is achieving similar rates of improvement."
"I'd say that Pete is one of many examples of how graduates from the the Systems Engineering approach with discipline specific majors and which is unique to the ANU, prepares engineers to successfully work anywhere," said Professor Cardew-Hall.
