Engineering from experience

 

What can engineers learn from the traces that years of work leave behind? Across Komatsu, engineers, technicians and operations leaders study those clues and share what they learn. That flow of knowledge can inform recovery decisions today while helping engineers ask better questions about the machines, materials and processes that come next.

 

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But evidence alone does not create knowledge. Someone has to recognize what matters, understand the conditions behind it and give other people a way to learn from it. That happens at many points in a machine’s life. Technicians inspect used components. Manufacturing teams test recovery processes. Field teams add operating context. Engineers combine earlier experience with analysis and testing before another machine is built. Their work raises one shared question: What can we learn from what happened here, and how can that knowledge improve what happens next?

A used component can preserve evidence of how it performed over time. Measurements, wear patterns and other physical clues can help teams understand what happened. The larger opportunity begins when that observation can move beyond the person who first saw it.

Adam Trebolo, Reman Sales and Marketing Manager in Lexington, U.S., has watched that process evolve during more than two decades in Reman, with experience across engineering, quality, operations and customer-facing roles. Work that once could vary by technician has become increasingly standardized through electronic instructions and connected measurement tools. Yet standardization does not eliminate the value of individual experience.

Technicians can also submit observations from steps in their work instructions for engineering review. “There's actually a little button the technician can click, and he can submit feedback that goes to engineering,” Trebolo said. That small action illustrates a much larger principle, that the person closest to the component may see something another team cannot. With a path to share it, a measurement, wear pattern or unexpected condition does not have to remain with one technician or one component. It can become a question for engineering, and potentially knowledge for others.

Kelvin Walker began his Komatsu career assembling mining machines as a workshop technician in Australia. Today, as National Operations Manager, in Perth, Australia, his work includes evaluating production efficiency, cost and new approaches to manufacturing and recovery. His teams are assessing processes and technologies including laser cladding, robotics, assisted tooling and autonomous material movement.

What matters, Walker said, is not novelty for its own sake. “That continual step change and challenging the status quo is what I find interesting.” Additive manufacturing offers one example. His team uses 3D printing for some production-support tools while evaluating more advanced applications for low-volume components. Experience matters because changing the process does not remove the engineering problem. A part designed to be formed from steel may need to be reconsidered for a different manufacturing method, including its material, orientation, reinforcement and operating forces. The broader lesson is simple. Start with the problem, then determine whether the process fits.

A worn surface tells only part of the story. Understanding where and how equipment was used can help engineers interpret what they see and distinguish among material behavior, operating conditions and other contributing factors.

That context can change the questions engineers ask. Unexpected wear might relate to a material, an operating condition or several factors working together. Understanding where and how equipment operates can help teams evaluate those possibilities. Product Managers Valerie Van Diest and Paul Dickinson, located in Vilvoorde, Belguim, see the same connection through materials and application.

Van Diest described wear components used in abrasive conditions, while Dickinson emphasized the range of climates and environments equipment may encounter. The point is not simply that difficult environments exist. It is that physical evidence becomes more useful when teams can connect it with the conditions that produced it. “This part wore” can then become a better question, such as why did it wear this way under these conditions, and what should we learn from it?

Greg Parker, an electrical engineer by training and now Product Director for drills, in Milwaukee, United States, works with teams that use engineering analysis to study how structures may respond before a physical machine is built. That work can identify areas of higher stress earlier, when teams have more opportunity to reconsider a structure.

Its value also reaches beyond a single design. Earlier experience can become another input into later engineering decisions. Parker said, “We take those lessons learned and we keep putting it in each and every successive project.” That is where the knowledge loop becomes visible. A lesson from a component or machine does not have to end with the equipment that produced it. Combined with testing, analysis and engineering judgment, experience from one project can help another team ask a better question about the next.

Newer technologies may not have decades of service history to study. Working directly with electrical components gives teams another opportunity to investigate how systems behave, ask questions about future service needs and begin building knowledge that later teams can use.

Learning does not always begin with decades of field history. Sometimes teams have to start building that knowledge while a technology is still developing. Masano is involved in planning around future aftermarket needs for electric and electrical components. The work raises questions teams are still exploring. What may fail inside a system? What might be suitable for reuse? What should be replaced? How could future designs make service work more practical?

Komatsu does not yet have the same depth of Electric component Reman experience that exists for established mechanical components. That makes it useful to ask lifecycle questions earlier rather than waiting for decades of experience to accumulate. The technology changes. The learning habit does not: Observe what happens, share what is learned and give future teams more knowledge to build on.

It takes technicians, field teams, manufacturing specialists and engineers each contributing their expertise, building on what others have learned and adding another piece to the story. As knowledge moves across teams and disciplines, individual observations become collective understanding.

Machines will continue to evolve. Materials, technologies and customer needs will evolve with them. What endures is the way Komatsu learns, carrying experience forward. It’s about building on shared knowledge and applying those lessons to help customers get more from every generation of equipment.

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