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I'm a Specifications Engineer Coordinator.

Furniture requires prototypes, or first samples. A prototype tells you more than a drawing, because it's tangible. So, I work with the designer, who creates the initial drawing or sketch of the product, and then the prototyper, who makes the first physical sample of the product. I work between these two roles to help solve problems as the project progresses. Our goal is to get one project done each day. I work with the prototyper to document from the beginning what works and what doesn't work to enable us to make revisions more easily. Then we know what to change to improve the product. The fabrics can change the appeal of a product, as well, so the designer wants to see it finished, as the customer will see it. I may work directly with the designer to resolve problems even before they get to the prototyper.

I work with the designers and engineers developing furniture, primarily for the RV industry. I work with drawings of foam and wood, and I also deal with fabric. While I'm doing that, I evaluate the work that's been done, and try to determine if there are going to be problems for the wood or foam venders who are going to make the individual products that will be used to make the furniture. I try to work out those problems if and when I find them.
When I'm done, I record all the requirements for a piece of foam or wood for a certain project. I follow that up with making a written documentation of the procedures to assemble the project - a chair, for example. I then log it into our computer system. The documentation of the procedures for manufacturing is then released to plants in various locations. I record any changes that might need to take place to make sure that all of the products delivered to our customer are exactly the same, whether they are produced in Iowa, Indiana, or California.

Our division has attempted to become as diverse as possible, but our biggest niche is the RV industry. Our RV products almost always have metal frames because of safety purposes, so we have a metal division to work with those products. We also work on projects with wooden frames for other types of clients. There are other departments here, but if the specifications engineers don't do their job, nobody else can do theirs.

When my part of the project is done, time study people take my information and set rates. Time study engineering sets up a rate that would estimate, for example, that it takes ten minutes to build the seat of a chair. That way, they can predict how long it will take to complete the entire project, which might be 500 fully completed chairs. Time study is just one example of what comes after my job in the process of making a product.

I recently worked on a project for a manufacturer in the boating industry. If you picture a boat, you imagine the hulls, which curve in a complex manner from the bottom of the boat to the top. This seating ran up against the hull, so it had to curve to match that shape and still provide the maximum seating area. That was a situation where I worked between the designer and the prototyper. I had to come up with the wooden infrastructure. Because it was so complex, it really didn't have any square angles in it. It was a huge timesaver for the prototyper, because I shortened his trial and error process. When I first saw the project, I thought it was impossible. It was all the more fun to make it work. I was very pleased with the result, and so was the customer.

I went to the University of Wisconsin Platteville. I earned a degree in Industrial Technology, Drafting and Design in four and half years. In that program, I learned about design. Not only that, but I learned about the processes of manufacturing and material handling. I saw real world examples of things I hadn't experienced before. I didn't really learn about furniture, because it's more of a specialty and less common in manufacturing. Making furniture is a very old process, but there aren't a lot of places you can go to learn how to do it. My most valuable classes were those that taught me about drafting, which refers to making drawings, because it's a universal language. It's a standardized mechanical language that documents thing visually. You can take a drawing and send it anywhere, and people can read it and know what it means. Drafting is very basic.

I had a recommendation from a career placement office at my college to come to this company and interview here. I came here directly after college, but later I left and then came back. My first job at here was in the upholstery division drawing conventional sofa and chair frames. Even though the furniture was made using wooden frames, there are metal springs in furniture. That's where the metal division comes into play. So the furniture division needs the metal division to make custom metal parts. After a few years, I found out there was an opening in the metal division, and I applied and received a position drawing custom metal parts for furniture. I did that for five to 10 years.

During that time, the company was approached by a client who requested motor home furniture. That was really the first time that had happened, and it opened up new opportunities, and essentially, a new division. At first, the upholstery department started protyping RV furniture while continuing to do traditional furniture. But the demand for RV products increased steadily, so a new department was created, and I joined that group doing product development. As my experience increased, I was able to take on the role of intermediary between the designer and the prototyper.

Right now my position is very detail-oriented, and I work with the prototyper. There is a job that I could advance to where I would be in charge of the all of the prototypers, called the Research and Design Shop Supervisor. The shop is where the prototypers work. There is a position above that, and that is the Product Development Manager of RV Soft Goods. That position deals more with the customer and their requests. Once that individual receives the request from the client, he works with the designer. That person will find out all the details, so that when we start to build the physical sample, we are dealing with the customer's exact requirements (size, shape, fabric, physical features, etc).

My main task is to develop the specifications book for a project once it moves from a "work in progress" to "approved." The spec book includes: building procedures, building materials, photos, and all of the components that it takes to build the product. Probably 30-40% of my time is spent on this book, while about 30% is spent working with CAD (Computer Aided Design), a computer program which allows me to make very specific drawings.

The rest of my time is spent on bulletin revisions or other tasks. I also act as a consultant for prototypers who are looking for advice while they're building a product. It's better for me to know about their questions, because then I can do a better job of documenting that information so others can understand. I spend part of the day ordering materials. A prototyper has a need for foam, for example, so they just order a block of it because they don't know exactly what they'll need yet. So I purchase that block of raw materials for them.

We have expanded into the metal frame industry, and we make some furniture for hospitals. We make chairs that convert into sleeping units, so that a guest can stay at a bedside all night and still get some rest, for instance. We also do certain products on a contract basis, which means that we produce a certain number of a specific item, maybe 100 chairs, for a commercial client, and then that's the end of the project. Our customers also include people in the RV and boating industry. We sell to boating manufacturers in many places, and those range from benches on a pontoon boat to chairs for yachts.

Almost all of our projects are short-term; we have to finish projects quickly. So, I have more daily tasks than anything else. I don't really have weekly or yearly tasks. However, we show products at trade shows that our boating or RV customers might attend. We have huge pushes at those times to get our sample products built. There are two RV trade shows and one boating trade show a year. Our customers show their product (a boat or RV) that has our product (seating) in it. We also show our products separately for any potential new clients to view, so that maybe we can sell our products to them. About every other year, I actually attend these shows.

Because my department is so varied, we can fit into so many different niches in the marketplace. We don't do just seating. One of the most unusual things I worked on was a device that helped display caskets. It was a metal structure that held the casket for display and allowed the position of the casket to be altered. That's not something that you do every day. I have also been involved with the steel straps that hold the gas tanks on semi-trucks. For a while, we made doors that went on Greyhound buses. They had all these strange dimensions, so that was interesting. We used to make a product for buses that would hold a wheelchair locked onto a wall while the bus was moving so the wheelchair wouldn't slide around.

I interact with the prototypers the most. I consult with them and I help them make decisions about a project. Sometimes it can be very hard to understand building procedures so, as I'm developing them, I go and talk to the prototyper so I can better comprehend what I need to write. Sometimes, the written description doesn't explain a process fully, so we'll take photos and put them in with the documentation to make things better. Also, I might make a drawing to better explain something in the spec book, and then I'll check with the prototyper to make sure it's accurate.

I think that it's difficult to leave your job at work. If you're having a stressful day, it's difficult to leave the stress at work and you bring it home with you. It also works the other way. If you have a good day and you're very successful, and you find out from your customer that they're thrilled with the sample that you sent them, it's fun to bring the euphoria back home with you.

Right now, manufacturing is in jeopardy. Everybody is in jeopardy of jobs being shipped overseas. My company is in the process of eliminating upholstery jobs right now. We have virtually no one making traditional furniture anymore. It happens in other plants, but not in Iowa. A lot of people just lost their jobs, and those jobs were essentially sent overseas. The field is always fluctuating. There's a direct relationship between new housing and traditional furniture; one follows right after the other. The housing slump we're having right now has made everything worse. The high price of our product made management decide how they were going to deal with that.

In my personal situation, the price of gas is going to affect the purchase of RVs and boats because, obviously, they require gas. Now here's where it gets complicated because, for most people, RVs and boats are luxuries, and the people that buy them will still be able to pay for gas. Although there have been downslides, my company is big enough that it has been able to avoid a lot of spikes in unemployment. They have to work very hard to not hire extra people when business is booming, because they'd have to let people go when they hit a slump. So we have to work through the busy times in order to survive the slow times.

We have a 401(k) retirement plan, and the company matches funds up to 4%. The company actively promotes employee participation and planning. They work hard to put the retirement plan into the employee's hands and let the employee make the decisions. They have training classes to teach you about working with your 401(k). They teach you that as a young person you should take more risks, because you have more time to recover if something doesn't turn out well. As you approach retirement, they will coach you to move away from experimentation and high-risk investments.

For people just starting there are two different types of jobs here: production jobs and managerial jobs. The production people start out at approximately $10 an hour. Because it's production, it's based on incentive rates, which are negotiated with the union. So, their take home wages end up being more like $15 an hour. Office people probably start at about $10-16 an hour, depending upon the job, and then it goes up from there until it becomes salaried. Salaried positions are probably $25,000-$30,000 a year in the beginning. The mid-range would be approximately $40,000-$50,000 a year. I think upper management earns about $100,000 a year.

My company is very old, so everything used to be drawn out by hand and it was very manual. Now, everything is moving towards computers. The computer tools are CAD, data storage, and data transfer, among others. Now we can move data from one location to another much more easily. In the past, if we wanted to get patterns to California, the only option we had was to send them via UPS. Now it can be done in seconds. That change has happened in the past five years. Ten years ago, there were a handful of computers scattered throughout the division. Now, there's one at every workstation. CAD drawings and digitized fabric pattern, which are entered into a computer system so they can be altered there instead of by hand, are just two examples of this.

The company has made a change to go towards laser cutting in metal. In the past, for instance, we had to use a machine to physically cut metal, and now we can use a laser to do it. What that means is that we reduce the cost of making the machine to cut the metal. Now, we're not as limited; we can simply adjust the laser to make different type of cut rather than making a completely new machine. The laser is very adaptable, and it can also adjust to a different type of material to cut.

I enjoy working with the designers the most. Essentially, what they create is artwork. I've always been intrigued by art, and I've always liked it. In a way, we're creating art. The creative aspect of my job can be very exciting. To see a product go from a flat sheet of paper to a physical sample can be very exciting, very rewarding, and a lot of fun. It's funny to see how much more people like a product after you've changed the color or added some other details. People will be much more pleased with it and find it more appealing. You can just sit back and grin, because you know you didn't really do that much to change the product. You just fooled the eye a bit. It's fun to have that creative experience.

On any given day, I'll make revisions to a set of drawings. Other employees will discover that a product can be improved, for example, if we make a part an inch taller. So, the request comes to me, and I write on a standard form and describe what the changes are, who made the request, and when it's effective, etc. Then I write a description for our other plants, so they can make the change in their spec books, or specification manuals. These changes get sent to many other departments so that we can all be on the same page. This happens in a set of messages or bulletins and it all has to be coordinated so that it happens at the same time.

This is what I enjoy the least, because it's very tedious and it means twice as much work. While you're doing the alteration, you're taking away from your productivity and the goals and tasks you'd hoped to get done. It's hard to achieve anything while you're making these revisions. Everyone has to make sure they update their records and it's just not productive time.

My company is more than 100 years old, so it has developed its own terminology and processes. Because of that, you can only learn so much outside before you have to come here and learn the details. You can only learn the details here. You have to be patient and gain experience here. You have to have failures before you can figure out what works and what doesn't. Make sure those failures don't happen again, and that you learn from those experiences. Don't set your expectations too high too soon. It will come and you will be able to do it—you just have to learn how things work here.

When you're asked to do a project, complete the project, but try to go above and beyond. Don't stop exactly where the project ends. Try to make it better than the request. The difficult part of that is that you don't know how to do that when you are just starting out. I can give that advice, but executing it and carrying it out is not easy for those just beginning work. It will come with more experience.

It's kind of cheesy, but I think it's good advice. Put your name in front of your supervisor as often as you can. You want your name associated with finishing a project in the mind of your supervisor. As time goes on and you gain experience, you'll become known as the person that gets things done.

Adaptability is important for my job. Being friendly and approachable is a good way to work with others, as well as being personable. A skill that I use is problem-solving. It's good to learn ways to evaluate information. In my exact situation, it's spatial relationships that are important. You have to be able to picture how things are going to work together. It may be on the outside of the furniture or it may be on the inside of the furniture. It may be picturing where the support does the most good, or it may be how and where to put the seams in something to make it look aesthetically pleasing. Know your customers and their requirements and expectations, and anticipate their needs. Know the business, too. Say that your client asks for a seat that is 12 inches in depth, you should know or learn that that is not big enough for most people, so you can already have a solution waiting for them. That way you've satisfied your customer, but you've done more than what they've asked for.

I would recommend additional training and schooling outside of the company. You can go and receive training that will enhance your prospects within the company. Gaining skills that allow you to achieve a higher position is a good idea. It's easier to advance to the next position when you already have the skills, and you don't have to develop them on the job. I, personally, was tutored in CAD about ten years ago.

The key to success is success. The key is having successful projects - demonstrating and proving over the long term that projects that you work on are successful. This promotes the ideas of confidence and dependability in relation to your work. Then, the people that you work with have confidence in you and they know they can rely on you. The absence of revisions, which are no more than interruptions in the completion of successful projects, help you succeed. The lack of customer complaints indicates how successful you are. We're very lucky with our success ratio. Probably 95% of our customers are satisfied with their products.