Future prospects are promising, page-9

Hi Teddyward,
It's funny that ABT have talked about using plastic housings on their brakes just recently because when i was there last time as a contractor and proposed the idea, they laughed.
Of course they use the term 'polymer' in their public announcements to make the company sound more high tech.
The reason is, with a large enough diameter, the actuation pressure required is low enough that polymer materials are strong enough to take the resultant stresses. Again, as I said, they didn't want to do FEA on the designs to develop the idea - after all it's not like they are an engineering R&D firm. After all, the money could be spent on another 'business trip' to Thailand to visit the factory.

The Thai facility was another joke as well...a backyard operation, people going around scrounging scrap metal to make brakes from...no material certificates...no cost tracking - the whole thing was a farce. At least they finally shut it down - at huge loss.

I think that changing to polymer materials will reduce the cost. I don't think they are manufacturing in high enough volumes to make casting cost effective but the time and cost of machining polymer will be less. Using machining only will eliminate the need to mold design which is another cost saving. By having CNC programs for various designs, they can adopt a ' lean and agile' approach to manufacturing brakes as orders are received.

I do agree they need a 'platform' product for each type of vehicle which can then be slightly modified to suit specific vehicles. This is another concept they didn't understand and instead were trying to use a 'one brake fits all' methodology across all products.

When I was last working there they had an opportunity for brakes for a Telescopic handler. The market opportunity was two vehicles. Yes, they were going to develop a new product for a market of 2 vehicles - shows their mentality. It was my job to change the design of an existing (Landcruiser I think) brake to suit the new vehicle. When I told them it would take 2 months to change the design, perform analysis and produce drawings, they lost interest and they could not make money on the job.

The other job I had last time was to modify a brake to suit a water truck that was in Kalgoorlie - again, a total market size of 1 vehicle - shows they were simply reacting to customer calls rather than developing a proper product strategy. The truck was shipped to Perth by the client and sat in the workshop for 2-3 months without anyone looking at it. The client then shipped the truck back to Kalgoorlie and asked where the new brakes were that had been promised. they had to fly me to Kalgoorlie to quickly measure up the vehicle and modify one of our exiting brakes to suit. That's the way the company was run - constantly running around fixing screw ups.

Going back to the truck brake, as I said, I started working on the brake in 2003. At that point they had already been working on it for 2 years. It's funny that Ken Johnson made the statement in a company announcement around 2012 that the brake had been in development for only 5 years - at that point it was over 10 years without a viable product!

When I started work on the truck brake, Vin Morely was the CEO. Vin's only connection to any engineering/technical background was that he was an airline pilot. He claimed that because planes used brakes on their landing gear he really understood the requirements of a good brake system. The managing director at the time was a woman named Dorota Kieronska (not sure of the spelling) who had a PHD in electrical engineering - just what you need when developing brakes! As a woman, Dorota was uncomfortable with us using the terms 'wet' and ' lubrication' in promotional material for the brakes so we had to work around it...with some hilarity in the engineering dept.

Vin started the practice of paying huge salaries at the company with his salary being $400,000 plus almost the same again in flights and accommodation and meals on business trips. I heard from one of the company employees in 2010 that the company had tried to sue him to get some money back but he declared bankruptcy to avoid the matter. I see from the annual reports that Ken Johnson was paid over $400,000 during his time as CEO, probably the only person who made decent money from the company.

Back to the truck brake. When I started working on the design I said that the company should design brakes to fit standard truck axles rather than specific vehicles such as Garbage trucks. The brake would then be a truck brake rather than a garbage truck brake. The management insisted that garbage truck brake gave it a bit of novelty and distinction so, garbage truck brake it was.

My first request was for the company to buy a second hand truck brake to get dimensional data to base the brake on. I was told that I should know what the dimensions were since I studied engineering at University! Yes, that's what we studied, truck axle catalogs.

My reasoning for buying an axle was that all truck manufacturers buy in axles for their trucks rather than make them themselves. Rockwell in the USA is one of the largest axle manufacturer in the world and their axles are used by most Truck OEMs. The brake would then be universal and would suit practically any vehicle.

The company finally relented and bought a second hand axle from a wrecker but in the meantime I had designed a generic brake just so we could get a working design and prove the braking torque and temperature on a test bench before going into production detail.

We worked out the braking torque required (10 kNm from memory) and I was given the specification that the brake be air actuated only with a mechanical cam actuation mechanism and with a water cooled housing. I came up with a design but the brake actuation force was so high there was no way a cam mechanism would work. Also, being air actuated, the applied force was so low that a unfeasibly long lever arm was needed between the air cylinder and cam mechanism.

For the prototype I managed to get obtain hydraulic cylinder to apply the huge application force to the brake pad on the test bed. The company didn't want to pay a lot for the prototype so went found a company in Malaga that did it for the cheapest price. Of course it was so badly made that the cooling system leaked and the brake actuation jammed. This was all my fault of course.

I had previously requested that the cooling system design be checked by a consultant using computational fluid dynamics software to check the effectiveness of the water cooling. This was rejected as it would cost too much ($3000-4000 from memory). Management said that ' you could get a weeks holiday for that sort of money'. Right, sorry I thought we were in the business of developing brakes, not taking holidays.

I remember a meeting which all the engineering staff attended at which I was dragged up to the front of the room and humiliated while my manager read a performance review of the prototype...
The requirements were written on a white board and progressively crossed out
Air actuated? No
Working cooling system? No
Designed to fit a garbage truck? No
Cam mechanism? No

I quit the next day.

During my time I suggested to management they institute the following practices
Using software to analyse stress and cooling efficiency in the brake housing.
Attach an accelerometer to a council garbage truck and measure/record the number of stops per hour during garbage collection and the average braking deceleration
Build in an 'air over hydraulic' actuation system to get the brake actuation force required.

None of these were implemented while I was at the company but I was amused to see they were all incorporated by the company years after I left.

As I mentioned before, I had to provide my own CAD and FEA software as the company did not want to spend money on such things. In 2003 they had 2 licences of outdated Autocad modelling software shared between 4 draftsmen. Instead of using an accelerometer to measure the braking frequency and power of the garbage truck I was given a stopwatch to time each brake application.

I found out that, in addition to being paid a very low salary, the company was not paying its employees Superannuation. It was only years later, after threats of prosecution by the tax department, that the contributions were made. While I was there the company was paying some of its employees (not management of course) less than minimum wage and was operating while insolvent which is illegal. There was always a fun game in the office 'will we get paid this week?'

I joined the company in October 2003 and left in January 2004. I was given the job by the CEO of designing the ruck brake and having ready on shelves for sale at the start of the next year. Shows how clueless he was!!

Since then, the company has improved a little but is still a joke if you ask me.