We as engineers get hung up on technical arguments that are not technical at all. Bolts, screws and studs, what’s the cutoff where one stops being a screw and becomes a bolt? It’s more a matter of their function, rather … Continued
A few years ago making something out of sapphire was in the realm of luxury and exotic applications. Swiss watches, iPhone camera covers and semiconductor components come to mind, hardly anything in common here. What happens next is a spectacular … Continued
The quality of an article is inversely proportional to its length. I’ll make it short. I want to make a point of using our engineering skills beyond technical applications. Engineers’ purpose is to keep the world going around. Without breaking … Continued
It’s a fast world. Especially here in Silicon Valley; people simply cannot afford to care. The immediate burden sometimes is just too high to look for a more permanent solution. In the world of scaling fast and large, survival or rampant greed are more … Continued
The other day I made a 3D CAD model of a gate valve. That is of an existing valve, currently in production from one of our suppliers. There was little geometrical data to go by, just the envelope dimensions and the … Continued
Where are you on this curve? Do you see what I mean? This is what we deal with on a daily basis trying to solve a custom engineering problem. It may seem obvious, but it’s worth reassuring our customers that … Continued
We do no marketing whatsoever, other than stuffing the website with keywords for “sight glasses“, our main products at this point. Why we still have sales is beyond me as we are on page 7 on Google, and Encole sight … Continued
We start there. It’s been two years of us buying and selling sight glasses made by others. Inspired by the insane attention to detail by KTM engineers, one of my favorite motorcycles, we set out to design sight glasses that combine function … Continued
It goes something like this. A request for quotation comes via our automated email. It gets forwarded to an engineer and our purchasing agent. Before the purchasing agent can quote, the engineer has to design the sight glass. Time goes … Continued
You get more for less, this is lean. All the elaborate theory behind lean itself is not lean at all; it’s an academic exercise often used to advance one’s resume. In practice, lean means creating more value for your customers with less resources. This … Continued