POSTED to EE&T ALUMNI

23 MARCH 2025

Section: Work-story - New car's mid-floor shake This is from Ken Robinson at the RSL after seeing and commenting on my latest community service projects there.

For me, it was easy to recall his story as I had a similar situation with our designed product and external electromagnetic interference on site.

== WORK-STORY ==

NEW CAR’S MID-FlOOR SHAKE

A guy reported to the Ford dealership in Newcastle his new model car always shook when it went over 80

km/hr. He kept saying, "she's a too tight" in his characteristic Italian accent.

Ken, the branch manager, firstly rebalanced all the wheels, the drive train and delivered it back to Bourke with an aim to remove the mid-floor shake. The customer drove it normally and reported, "she's a too tight" after a few days.

Ken recalled the car and stripped it all back himself down to nuts and bolts. It was returned a second time.

"She's a too tight" came back over the telephone. "Ok, bring it back and we'll go back to the factory in Brisbane and ask the engineers there to look into it further."

The engineers reported back to Ken that "everything performs well within specifications and torque limits". This was relayed back to the customer in Bourke. The customer still replied with "she's a too tight".

Ken, asked the customer, why he kept saying, "she's a too tight". He replied, "I weld sections together for pipelines. You need space between welds so they can expand and contract in the day and night."

Ken twigged and went to the Brisbane plant to see the robot welding the chassis & panels. Sure enough, the spot welds were closer together than expected on the plans. Three spots in the space of one expected interval.

The welding tip had slipped down and welded three times in the space of one as the job was incrementing along. Naturally, it didn't come up in the performance tests. Ken alerted the engineers with some 'clear and descriptive' words.

The robot was adjusted back to where it should have been welding in the process line.

Ken had his team grind out two of the three extra welds to stop the mid-floor vibration from appearing after 80

km/hr.

The car was delivered back to the customer. The return call came back to say, "She's a good and not a tight anymore. Thank you for following this up."

One take-way could be by going back to first principles. For example, interacting with the customer on the frontline by asking a few more questions early on in the conversation. More time and effort could be available for another project.

Does anyone have a simliar story(ies) to share with the viewers?

// Posted to EEnT Alumni (LI), Elsoc-Alumni (FB) and own LI space

// 23 MAR FEB 2025

// Ctee: @Kaveh, @Luke, @Edmund, @Shakthi, @Vijay

// Prv Ctee: @GaganSK, @SomanshA, @SimonB, @MatthewR

// Heads: Dean @JulienE; EEnT Prof. @JinhongY

== COMMENTS ==

By 30 MAR JAN 2025

Just a thank you & recognition of people that took time to view and respond to this post so far.

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Post - EEAlm 250323.docx

Robert Smith