Why Engineering is the Heart and Soul of Material Progress
Posted by
Tom Trisco on Mon, Feb 20, 2012 @ 08:45 AM
Chuck Yanke is taking a breather from writing about the Luge Team and is passing the torch for the blog back to me. I’ve enjoyed reading his postings, not just because I got a couple of months off, but because I learned more about a subject I thought I already knew pretty well.
Not the case.
I have met the Luge athletes Vulcan has sponsored. I’ve seen first-hand how the employees, me included, get charged up hearing stories of their training, competitions, triumphs and setbacks. These are all themes we know in business. We get inspired when they exhibit the same spirit in their world. The sliders make their runs, the performance time is what it is, and they either win or they don’t.
But that’s all on the surface.
What I didn’t have insight into, but maybe should have, was the degree to which engineering advances can play a role in competitive outcomes. The fact is this is exactly what happens every day for us on the job. When the engineers at Vulcan GMS get an opportunity to work with customers, typically our engineers have a fast and positive impact on the course of new product development and product upgrade efforts.
Let’s take the subject of lead shielding for radiation protection products. This is an activity that is at the core of our business. To do our job well, we have busy engineering, quality and customer-service departments that have to work closely together. We need to be highly competitive at the work we do so our customers can build on our excellence to enhance their own competitiveness.
In this way, the people in our company work like the USA Luge Team’s corporate sponsors. We all find areas within our own zones of expertise to do good for the team. That means working together as engineers, quality professionals and problem solvers to give the team the finest possible equipment to use.
Personally, I didn’t have a perspective on just how much work was going into the effort to support our team. With the next Winter Olympics only two years away, and a team of up-and-coming sliders dedicated to perfecting their skills, there is a window of opportunity for improving equipment, performance measurement tools and finding new designs, new materials and new production techniques that can make a difference.
Supporting the Luge Team is one way Vulcan exercises its commitment to continuous improvement. What we learn about lead manufacturing, lead processes and making our lead products better, enables us to help the Luge Team. And the act of helping them gives us a feed-back loop to spread production improvements throughout our shop to serve customers better.
Our core business is developing lead and non-lead radiation protection materials and products. These products shield people from x-rays: in medical devices, in security systems for airports, seaports and buildings, and in scientific applications where radiation shielding systems are needed.
Watching Vulcan’s Luge support team in action is one more way to sharpen our understanding of how important it is to work together. Customers need x-ray shielding lead products that are of completely reliable quality, delivered in an ever-faster time frame, and characterized by optimal balance of improvement and affordability.
Emulating the Luge Team, in their focus on winning, shows us the discipline that will help the Team fulfill its quest—maybe in Sochi, Russia in two years—to bring home a gold medal.
That same discipline also helps us satisfy our customers in a way that contributes to their success, setting the stage for all of us to strengthen our businesses and prosper.