Tuesday, September 21, 2004
I Had To Steal The $30,000 Tool !
By Dan Shanefield
Retired Bell Labs Engineer and Retired Rutgers Professor
.
Around 1970, I (and several very good co-workers) had finally succeeded in making super-smooth ceramic by the "doctor blade tape casting method." This project had been going on for 6 years, consuming huge amounts of money for salaries, equipment, etc. Also, it was badly needed by AT&T, for the non-mechanical (all-electronic, fully-transistorized) switching systems of the future, which had to use "integrated circuits" involving "thin films" on smooth ceramics. The top management of AT&T was losing patience, and they set a deadline. If we weren't able to supply our integrated circuit factory with the smooth ceramic, the whole enormous project would be abandoned, and the old soldered-on switches would have to be used to accommodate the fast growth that was taking place in telephone lines.
The U.S. Federal Government was thinking seriously about breaking up AT&T, and their first step was to make us stop manufacturing our own ceramics. We had to end our ceramics project at the "Princeton" ERC where I worked, and my immediate boss quit the company in anger. I started working on gold plating, but on the side, I helped sell patent licenses to small companies so they could use our tape casting ceramic process and supply us with the necessary smooth ceramic. The best of these, MRC, began making the ceramics. They ran out of raw material and had to start using a new truckload, which turned out to be different. The material didn't shrink enough during firing, so the ceramics were too big. There wasn't time to get new raw material or new machines before the deadline. The top management had spent too much money and heard too many excuses during the 6 years, so they refused to extend the deadline. (I had only been on the project for about 2 years.)
The size of the fired ceramic was determined by cutting pieces out of soft, unfired "tape," with a "punch and die set." This was similar to a cookie cutter or a 3-hole punch for loose-leaf paper. However, it had to be made out of tungsten carbide-faced steel, to resist getting worn out by the abrasive tape. It took 6 weeks to make, and it cost $30,000. We only had two weeks left, and MRC didn't have the money for a new set. It looked like the 6-year project and my hard work were all going down the drain.
I had 5 punch and die sets, each designed for a different firing shrinkage, since I knew that it might vary. One was just right for MRC's shrinkage, so I immediately called up MRC and said I would lend them ours.
Anything costing more than $10,000 had to have special paperwork signed, if it was to be taken out of our ERC building. My boss was away on a long trip, but his boss, Walter M., was in the building, and other important people were away, also. (Walt's last name deleted, for privacy.) I ran to Walt's office with the paperwork, to get it signed.
Walt was nearly incompetent. He had been a lower level boss and had done such a bad job that his previous organization had "kicked him upstairs" to a higher level position in our organization, in order to get rid of him. (They had written false praises about him.)
Walt had never had a successful project, and he was secretly jealous of our success, even though our project was now part of his organization.
Walt said there was an AT&T rule that only a higher boss than him could sign for $30,000, so he refused to sign. I said we were no longer allowed to use the punch & die set, so "Let's declare it worth only $8,000." He said "That's dishonest," and he wouldn't do it. He had always been a stickler for following the rules to the letter, and he had fired an engineer for falling asleep at one of his meetings. (To me it seemed that Walt was smiling, as though he enjoyed causing our failure, but I couldn't be sure of that.)
The next morning, I parked my car behind a truck, so it could not be seen from the main building, but it was directly in the path between that building and a small storage building. I moved the p&d sets to various random locations, so they would no longer be all in an orderly row on the shelf. I put the correct punch & die set for MRC onto a cart, with some old pumps, and I rolled the cart out toward the storage building. The guards inspected it and let me go. On the way, I quickly picked up the 100 pound punch and die set and put it in my car's trunk. (I had been exercising a lot, so I was able to carry it.) Then I took the pumps to the storage building, and I waved to the closed circuit TV camera and pointed to the pumps as I went in there. (Of course, the guards were watching this, but they had not been able to see my car.)
I called MRC, left work early, and we each drove to my house, where they got the p&d set. It worked fine with their new material, and the whole project was a tremendous success, making me famous in the field of ceramics.
The technicians later told me that Walt had come around to our shelf, looking for the p&d sets, but the sets had been moved to a variety of places, so he gave up trying to find out if one was missing.
I never was able to tell the technicians or my boss or anybody else about this adventure, until years later. If Walt had caught me, I'll bet he would have gotten me fired and maybe put in jail.
MRC eventually gave me back the punch and die set, and I put it back on the shelf, many months later. Walt eventually got forced to take early retirement, because of a lot of bad decisions. Our ceramic is now used all over the world.
---------------------------------------------
NOTE: You can see the book I wrote about ceramics (including tape casting), if you search
http://amazon.com for "shanefield ceramic" (without the quotes).
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------
Click on this to see another story:
The Green Monster
==========================
Click on this to see author's CV:
Dan's Resume
Retired Bell Labs Engineer and Retired Rutgers Professor
.
Around 1970, I (and several very good co-workers) had finally succeeded in making super-smooth ceramic by the "doctor blade tape casting method." This project had been going on for 6 years, consuming huge amounts of money for salaries, equipment, etc. Also, it was badly needed by AT&T, for the non-mechanical (all-electronic, fully-transistorized) switching systems of the future, which had to use "integrated circuits" involving "thin films" on smooth ceramics. The top management of AT&T was losing patience, and they set a deadline. If we weren't able to supply our integrated circuit factory with the smooth ceramic, the whole enormous project would be abandoned, and the old soldered-on switches would have to be used to accommodate the fast growth that was taking place in telephone lines.
The U.S. Federal Government was thinking seriously about breaking up AT&T, and their first step was to make us stop manufacturing our own ceramics. We had to end our ceramics project at the "Princeton" ERC where I worked, and my immediate boss quit the company in anger. I started working on gold plating, but on the side, I helped sell patent licenses to small companies so they could use our tape casting ceramic process and supply us with the necessary smooth ceramic. The best of these, MRC, began making the ceramics. They ran out of raw material and had to start using a new truckload, which turned out to be different. The material didn't shrink enough during firing, so the ceramics were too big. There wasn't time to get new raw material or new machines before the deadline. The top management had spent too much money and heard too many excuses during the 6 years, so they refused to extend the deadline. (I had only been on the project for about 2 years.)
The size of the fired ceramic was determined by cutting pieces out of soft, unfired "tape," with a "punch and die set." This was similar to a cookie cutter or a 3-hole punch for loose-leaf paper. However, it had to be made out of tungsten carbide-faced steel, to resist getting worn out by the abrasive tape. It took 6 weeks to make, and it cost $30,000. We only had two weeks left, and MRC didn't have the money for a new set. It looked like the 6-year project and my hard work were all going down the drain.
I had 5 punch and die sets, each designed for a different firing shrinkage, since I knew that it might vary. One was just right for MRC's shrinkage, so I immediately called up MRC and said I would lend them ours.
Anything costing more than $10,000 had to have special paperwork signed, if it was to be taken out of our ERC building. My boss was away on a long trip, but his boss, Walter M., was in the building, and other important people were away, also. (Walt's last name deleted, for privacy.) I ran to Walt's office with the paperwork, to get it signed.
Walt was nearly incompetent. He had been a lower level boss and had done such a bad job that his previous organization had "kicked him upstairs" to a higher level position in our organization, in order to get rid of him. (They had written false praises about him.)
Walt had never had a successful project, and he was secretly jealous of our success, even though our project was now part of his organization.
Walt said there was an AT&T rule that only a higher boss than him could sign for $30,000, so he refused to sign. I said we were no longer allowed to use the punch & die set, so "Let's declare it worth only $8,000." He said "That's dishonest," and he wouldn't do it. He had always been a stickler for following the rules to the letter, and he had fired an engineer for falling asleep at one of his meetings. (To me it seemed that Walt was smiling, as though he enjoyed causing our failure, but I couldn't be sure of that.)
The next morning, I parked my car behind a truck, so it could not be seen from the main building, but it was directly in the path between that building and a small storage building. I moved the p&d sets to various random locations, so they would no longer be all in an orderly row on the shelf. I put the correct punch & die set for MRC onto a cart, with some old pumps, and I rolled the cart out toward the storage building. The guards inspected it and let me go. On the way, I quickly picked up the 100 pound punch and die set and put it in my car's trunk. (I had been exercising a lot, so I was able to carry it.) Then I took the pumps to the storage building, and I waved to the closed circuit TV camera and pointed to the pumps as I went in there. (Of course, the guards were watching this, but they had not been able to see my car.)
I called MRC, left work early, and we each drove to my house, where they got the p&d set. It worked fine with their new material, and the whole project was a tremendous success, making me famous in the field of ceramics.
The technicians later told me that Walt had come around to our shelf, looking for the p&d sets, but the sets had been moved to a variety of places, so he gave up trying to find out if one was missing.
I never was able to tell the technicians or my boss or anybody else about this adventure, until years later. If Walt had caught me, I'll bet he would have gotten me fired and maybe put in jail.
MRC eventually gave me back the punch and die set, and I put it back on the shelf, many months later. Walt eventually got forced to take early retirement, because of a lot of bad decisions. Our ceramic is now used all over the world.
---------------------------------------------
NOTE: You can see the book I wrote about ceramics (including tape casting), if you search
http://amazon.com for "shanefield ceramic" (without the quotes).
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------
Click on this to see another story:
The Green Monster
==========================
Click on this to see author's CV:
Dan's Resume
