My life

Hidragrup

After having spent some time looking for a new job, without major success, all of a sudden everything changed. A good friend of mine, who has contacts everywhere, asked one of her friends, who is owner of a bar in an industrial park in Moncada, for help. On Thursday October 28th, 2004 we went to the bar to eat brunch in the bar. We had broughth three CVs which were to be distributed among some of the businesses in the industrial park.

After a while, one of the partners of a company in the industrial park, came forward to greet us. The were looking for an engineer, and he asked me to return on the following Tuesday to make an interview. OK. Five minutes later another of the partners of the same company appeared, and he asked me if if was the engineer looking for a job. He took on a guided tour of the company, which was located just beside the bar. After a quick tour through the workshop, the office and the technical department, and a short conversation with the tow partners, they asked me to, as I interpreted it at thar moment, to return on the next Tuesday to make a deeper interview.

Having spent the whole weekend studying the design tool Solid Edge, which is used at Hidragrup, S.L (which is the name of the company), I showed up at the company on Tuesday morning. One of the partners presented me to the employees of the technical department - the designer, the holder of scholarship and to the electrical engineer - gave me a pile of papers with specifications of a smaller hydraulic press that had to be finished at the end of November, and finally asked me to pass by at the office to take care of the paper work.

¡Whew! Not exactly what I had expected, but what the hey! I started designing using Solid Edge and before the end of the day I had dinished my first part with drawing and all. Before the end of the week I had designed a hydraulic cylinder, with parts, assembly and drawings. My head was in a mess and I was asking myself how long I would last in Hidragrup.

Extraction press with lifting table Auxiliary machines, consisting of two extraction presses and one lifting table. 197 parts 95 unique parts 78 drawings Completed 2004-11

During the following weeks I finished the design of the hydraulic press with its accompaning lifting table (I soon learned that the press consisted of a few more parts than the hydraulic cylinder...). With the packet of drawing still hot from the printer I started with my second work, designing som parts for the reformation of a hydraulic press.

In December I started helping the designer with a tube manipulating machine. At the beginning of January, it was clear that the designer was so occupied designing rotary table, that I was assigned the responsability to finish the design of the tube manipulating machine. After a lot of work and loads of drawing, we finished the machine and fortunately fo me it was a great success.

Tube feeding machine Machine designed to feed steel tubes located in a container and leave them in a predefined position. 976 parts 390 unique parts 249 drawings Completed 2005-03

Personnel reduction

At the end of April, the designer left the company, and I was left alone in the mechanical department, together with the holder of scholarship. Some month later, he also left the company, and I had a very busy period with a combination of design work, purchase and assembly, etc. Given the fact that I was left alone, I reached the conclusion that the only way one continuing the reduction of personnel was o reduce myself, and therefore I started running again, to see if I could loose a kilo or two.

During the following months, I began to know the different personalities at the company (if any of you read this, you know who you are). I beagn to know the company, and I began to understand that it was very different to what I was used to.

Reduction of the workshop and the machine from hell

During the months May and June, we were informed that the company had sold the two newest workshops of the three, and that all activities were to be intergrated into the oldest one. At more or less the same time, we received an order of a complete rebuilding of a machine, which was one of the biggest works in the history of the company. The rebuilding started in June and continued under a lot of pressure until October, when the machine could finally be delivered. During this period, two reactivation heating cabinets, one hydraulic press, a rotary table and a vacuum formning table, were also built. In the beginning of October the workshops that had been sold were emptied and an operation was initiated to, without what is possible, organise the work in less than half of the surface previously used.

Vacuum edgefolding machine Vacuum edgefolding press. Machine reformation to permit larger tools and addition of an ergonomic tilting system. 1002 parts 459 unique parts 205 drawings Completed 2005-10

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